yl 


EX  LIBR.IS 


JOHN 
GLEN 
MARINER. 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


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WOMEN  IN  LOVE 


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WOMEN  IN  LOVE 


BY 

D.  H.  LAWRENCE 


NEW   YORK 

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WOMEN  IN  LOVE 


Women  in  Love 


CHAPTER  I 

URSULA  and  Gudrun  Brangwen  sat  one  morning  in 
the  window-bay  of  their  father's  house  in  Beldover, 
working  and  talking.  Ursula  was  stitching  a  piece  of 
brightly  coloured  embroidery,  and  Gudrun  was  drawing  upon 
a  board  which  she  held  on  her  knee.  They  were  mostly  silent, 
talking  as  their  thoughts  strayed  through  their  minds. 

"Ursula,"  said  Gudrun,  "don't  you  really  want  to  get 
married?"  Ursula  laid  her  embroidery  in  her  lap  and  looked 
up.     Her  face  was  calm  and  considerate. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  replied.    "It  depends  how  you  mean." 

Gudrun  was  slightly  taken  aback.  She  watched  her 
sister  for  some  moments. 

"Well,"  she  said,  ironically,  "it  usually  means  one  thing! 
— But  don't  you  think  anyhow,  you'd  be" — she  darkened 
slightly — "in  a  better  position  than  you  are  in  now?" 

A  shadow  came  over  Ursula's  face. 

"I  might,"  she  said.     "But  I'm  not  sure." 

Again  Gudrun  paused,  slightly  irritated.  She  wanted  to 
be  quite  definite. 

"You  don't  think  one  needs  the  experience  of  having  been 
married?"  she  asked. 

"Do  you  think  it  need  be  an  experience?"  replied  Ursula. 

"Bound  to  be,  in  some  way  or  other,"  said  Gudrun,  coolly. 
"Possibly  undesirable,  but  bound  to  be  an  experience  of  some 
sort." 

"Not  really,"  said  Ursula.  "More  likely  to  be  the  end 
of  experience." 

Gudrun  sat  very  still,  to  attend  to  this. 

"Of  course,"  she  said,  "there's  thai  to  consider."  This 
brought  the  conversation  to  a  close.      Gudrun,  almost  an- 


4  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

grily,  took  up  her  rubber  and  began  to  rub  out  part  of  her 
drawing.      Ursula  stitched  absorbedly. 

"You  wouldn't  consider  a  good  offer?"  asked  Gudrun. 

"I  think  I've  rejected  several,"  said  Ursula. 

"Really 7"  Gudrun  flushed  dark. — "But  anything  really 
worth  while?     Have  you  really?" 

"A  thousand  a  year,  and  an  awfully  nice  man.  I  liked 
him  awfully,"  said  Ursula. 

"Really!     But  weren't  you  fearfully  tempted?" 

"In  the  abstract  but  not  in  the  concrete,"  said  Ursula. 
"When  it  comes  to  the  point,  one  isn't  even  tempted — oh,  if 
I  were  tempted,  I'd  marry  like  a  shot. — I'm  only  tempted 
not  to."  The  faces  of  both  sisters  suddenly  lit  up  with  amuse- 
ment. 

"Isn't  it  an  amazing  thing,"  cried  Gudrun,  "how  strong 
the  temptation  is,  not  to!"  They  both  laughed,  looking  at 
each  other.      In  their  hearts  they  were  frightened. 

There  was  a  long  pause,  whilst  Ursula  stitched  and  Gud- 
run went  on  with  her  sketch.  The  sisters  were  women. 
Ursula  twenty-six,  and  Gudrun  twenty-five.  But  both  had 
the  remote,  virgin  look  of  modern  girls,  sisters  of  Artemis 
rather  than  of  Hebe.  Gudrun  was  very  beautiful,  passive, 
soft-skinned,  soft-limbed.  She  wore  a  dress  of  dark-blue 
silky  stuff,  with  ruches  of  blue  and  green  linen  lace  in  the 
neck  and  sleeves;  and  she  had  emerald-green  stockings. 
Her  look  of  confidence  and  diffidence  contrasted  with  Ursula's 
sensitive  expectancy.  The  provincial  people,  intimidated  by 
Gudrun's  perfect  sang-froid  and  exclusive  bareness  of  man- 
ner, said  of  her:  "She  is  a  smart  woman."  She  had  just 
come  back  from  London,  where  she  had  spent  several  years, 
working  at  an  art-school,  as  a  student,  and  living  a  studio  life. 

"I  was  hoping  now  for  a  man  to  come  along,"  Gudrun 
said,  suddenly  catching  her  underlip  between  her  teeth, 
and  making  a  strange  grimace,  half  sly  smiling,  half  anguish. 
Ursula  was  afraid. 

"So  you  have  come  home,  expecting  him  here?"  she 
laughed. 

"Oh  my  dear,"  cried  Gudrun,  strident,  'T  wouldn't  go 
out  of  my  way  to  look  for  him.      But  if  there  did  happen 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  5 

to  come  along  a  highly  attractive  individual  of  sufficient 
means — well — "  she  tailed  off  ironically.  Then  she  looked 
searchingly  at  Ursula,  as  if  to  probe  her.  "Don't  you  find 
yourself  getting  bored?"  she  asked  of  her  sister.  "Don't  you 
find,  that  things  fail  to  materialize?  Nothing  materializes! 
Kvi  rything  withers  in  the  bud." 

"What  withers  in  the  bud?"  asked  Ursula. 

"Oh,  everything — oneself — things  in  general."  There 
was  a  pause,  whilst  each  sister  vaguely  considered  her  fate. 

"It  does  frighten  one,"  said  Ursula,  and  again  there  was 
a  pause.  "But  do  you  hope  to  get  anywhere  by  just  marry- 
ing?" 

"It  seems  to  be  the  inevitable  next  step,"  said  Gudrun. 
Ursula  pondered  this,  with  a  little  bitterness.  She  was  a 
class  mistress  herself,  in  Willey  Green  Grammar  School,  as 
she  had  been  for  some  years. 

"I  know,"  she  said,  "it  seems  like  that  when  one  thinks 
in  the  abstract.  But  really  imagine  it:  imagine  any  man 
one  knows,  imagine  him  coming  home  to  one  every  evening, 
and  saying  'Hello,'  and  giving  one  a  kiss — " 

There  was  a  blank  pause. 

"Yes,"  said  Gudrun,  in  a  narrowed  voice.  "It's  just 
impossible.     The  man  makes  it  impossible." 

"Of  course  there's  children — "  said  Ursula  doubtfully. 

Gudrun's  face  hardened. 

"Do  you  really  want  children,  Ursula?"  she  asked  coldly. 
A  dazzled,  baffled  look  came  on  Ursula's  face. 

"One  feels  it  is  still  beyond  one,"  she  said. 

"Do  you  feel  like  that?"  asked  Gudrun.  "I  get  no  feel- 
ing whatever  from  the  thought  of  bearing  children." 

Gudrun  looked  at  Ursula  with  a  mask-like,  expressionless 
face.     Ursula  knitted  her  brows. 

"Perhaps  it  isn't  genuine,"  she  faltered.  "Perhaps  one 
doesn't  really  want  them,  in  one's  soul — only  superficially." 
A  hardness  came  over  Gudrun's  face.  She  did  not  want  to 
be  too  definite. 

"When  one  thinks  of  other  people's  children — "  said 
Ursula. 

Again  Gudrun  looked  at  her  sister,  almost  hostile. 


6  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

"Exactly,"  she  said,  to  close  the  conversation. 

The  two  sisters  worked  on  in  silence,  Ursula  having  always 
that  strange  brightness  of  an  essential  flame  that  was  caught, 
meshed,  contravened.  She  lived  a  good  deal  by  herself,  to 
herself,  working,  passing  on  from  day  to  day,  and  always 
thinking,  trying  to  lay  hold  on  life,  to  grasp  it  in  her  own 
understanding.  Her  active  living  was  suspended,  but  under- 
neath, in  the  darkness,  something  was  coming  to  pass.  If 
only  she  could  break  through  the  last  integuments!  She 
seemed  to  try  and  put  her  hands  out,  like  an  infant  in  the 
womb,  and  she  could  not,  not  yet.  Still  she  had  a  strange 
prescience,  an  intimation  of  something  yet  to  come. 

She  laid  down  her  work  and  looked  at  her  sister.  She 
thought  Gudrun  so  charming,  so  infinitely  charming,  in  her 
softness  and  her  fine,  exquisite  richness  of  texture  and  deli- 
cacy of  line.  There  was  a  certain  playfulness  about  her  too, 
such  a  piquancy  or  ironic  suggestion,  such  an  untouched  re- 
serve.    Ursula  admired  her  with  all  her  soul. 

"Why  did  you  come  home,  Prune?"  she  asked. 
Gudrun  knew  she  was  being  admired.      She  sat  back  from 
her  drawing  and   looked  at  Ursula,   from   under  her  finely 
curved  lashes. 

"Why  did  I  come  back,  Ursula?"  she  repeated.  "I  have 
asked  myself  a  thousand  times." 

"And  don't  you  know?" 

"Yes,  I  think  I  do.  I  think  my  coming  back  home  was 
just  reculer  pour  mieux  sauter." 

And  she  looked  with  a  long,  slow  look  of  knowledge  at 
Ursula. 

"I  know!"  cried  Ursula,  looking  slightly  dazzled  and 
falsified,  and  as  if  she  did  not  know.  "But  where  can  one 
jump  to?" 

"Oh,  it  doesn't  matter,"  said  Gudrun,  somewhat  superbly. 
"If  one  jumps  over  the  edge,  one  is  bound  to  land  somewhere." 

"But  isn't  it  very  risky?"  asked  Ursula. 

A  slow  mocking  smile  dawned  on  Gudrun's  face. 

"Ah!"  she  said  laughing.  "What  is  it  all  but  words!" 
And  so  again  she  closed  the  conversation.  But  Ursula  was 
still  brooding. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  7 

"And  how  do  you  find  home,  now  you  have  come  back 
to  it?"  she  asked. 

Gudrun  paused  for  some  moments,  coldly,  before  answer- 
ing.    Then,  in  a  cold  truthful  voice,  she  said: 

"I  find  myself  completely  out  of  it." 

"And  father?" 

Gudrun  looked  at  Ursula,  almost  with  resentment,  as  if 
brought  to  bay. 

"I  haven't  thought  about  him:  I've  refrained,"  she 
said  coldly. 

"Yes,"  wavered  Ursula;  and  the  conversation  was  really 
at  an  end.  The  sisters  found  themselves  confronted  by  a 
void,  a  terrifying  chasm,  as  if  they  had  looked  over  the  edge. 

They  worked  on  in  silence  for  some  time,  Gudrun's  cheek 
was  flushed  with  repressed  emotion.  She  resented  its  having 
been  called  into  being. 

"Shall  we  go  out  and  look  at  that  wedding?"  she  asked 
at  length,  in  a  voice  that  was  too  casual. 

"Yes!"  cried  Ursula,  too  eagerly,  throwing  aside  her  sew- 
ing and  leaping  up,  as  if  to  escape  something,  thus  betraying 
the  tension  of  the  situation  and  causing  a  friction  of  dislike 
to  go  over  Gudrun's  nerves. 

As  she  went  upstairs,  Ursula  was  aware  of  the  house,  of 
her  home  round  about  her.  And  she  loathed  it,  the  sordid, 
too-familiar  place!  She  was  afraid  at  the  depth  of  her  feel- 
ing against  the  home,  the  milieu,  the  whole  atmosphere  and 
condition  of  this  obsolete  life.  Her  feeling  frightened 
her. 

The  two  girls  were  soon  walking  swiftly  down  the  main 
road  of  Beldover,  a  wide  street,  part  shops,  part  dwelling 
houses,  utterly  formless  and  sordid,  without  poverty.  Gud- 
run, new  from  her  life  in  Chelsea  and  Sussex,  shrank  cruelly 
from  this  amorphous  ugliness  of  a  small  colliery  town  in  the 
Midlands.  Yet  forward  she  went,  through  the  whole  sordid 
gamut  of  pettiness,  the  long  amorphous,  gritty  street.  She 
was  exposed  to  every  stare,  she  passed  on  through  a  stretch 
of  torment.  It  was  strange  that  she  should  have  chosen  to 
come  back  and  test  the  full  effect  of  this  shapeless,  barren 
ugliness  upon  herself.      Why  had  she  wanted  to  submit  her- 


8  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

self  to  it,  did  she  still  want  to  submit  herself  to  it,  the  insuf- 
ferable torture  of  these  ugly,  meaningless  people,  this  defaced 
countryside?  She  felt  like  a  beetle  toiling  in  the  dust.  She 
was  filled  with  repulsion. 

They  turned  off  the  main  road,  past  a  black  patch  of 
common-garden,  where  sooty  cabbage  stumps  stood  shame- 
less. No  one  thought  to  be  ashamed.  No  one  was  ashamed 
of  it  all. 

"It  is  like  a  country  in  an  underworld,"  said  Gudrun. 
"The  colliers  bring  it  above-ground  with  them,  shovel  it  up. 
Ursula,  it's  marvellous,  it's  really  marvellous — it's  really 
wonderful,  another  world.  The  people  are  all  ghouls,  and 
everything  is  ghostly.  Everything  is  a  ghoulish  replica  of 
the  real  world,  a  replica,  a  ghoul,  all  soiled,  everything  sor- 
did.     It's  like  being  mad,  Ursula." 

The  sisters  were  crossing  a  black  path  through  a  dark, 
soiled  field.  On  the  left  was  a  large  landscape,  a  valley  with 
collieries,  and  opposite  hills  with  cornfields  and  woods,  all 
blackened  with  distance,  as  if  seen  through  a  veil  of  crape. 
White  and  black  smoke  rose  up  in  steady  columns,  magic 
within  the  dark  air.  Near  at  hand  came  the  long  rows  of 
dwellings,  approaching  curved  up  the  hill-slope,  in  straight 
lines  along  the  brow  of  the  hill.  They  were  of  darkened  red 
brick,  brittle,  with  dark  slate  roofs.  The  path  on  which  the 
sisters  walked  was  black,  trodden-in  by  the  feet  of  the  recur- 
rent colliers,  and  bounded  from  the  field  by  iron  fences;  the 
stile  that  led  again  into  the  road  was  rubbed  shiny  by  the 
moleskins  of  the  passing  miners.  Now  the  two  girls  were 
going  between  some  rows  of  dwellings,  of  the  poorer  sort. 
Women,  their  arms  folded  over  their  coarse  aprons,  standing 
gossiping  at  the  ends  of  their  block,  stared  after  the  Brangwen 
sisters  with  that  long,  unwearying  stare  of  aborigines;  child- 
ren called  out  names. 

Gudrun  went  on  her  way  half  dazed.  If  this  were  human 
life,  if  these  were  human  beings,  living  in  a  complete  world, 
then  what  was  her  own  world,  outside?  She  was  aware  of 
her  grass-green  stockings,  her  large  grass-green  velour  hat, 
her  full  soft  coat,  of  a  strong  blue  colour.  And  she  felt  as 
if  she  were  treading  in  the  air,  quite  unstable,  her  heart  was 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  9 

contracted,  as  if  at  any  minute  she  might  be  precipitated  to 
the  ground.     She  was  afraid. 

She  clung  to  Ursula,  who,  through  long  usage  was  inured 
to  this  violation  of  a  dark,  uncreated,  hostile  world.  But 
all  the  time  her  heart  was  crying,  as  if  in  the  midst  of  some 
ordeal:  "I  want  to  go  back,  I  want  to  go  away,  I  want  not 
to  know  it,  not  to  know  that  this  exists."  Yet  she  must  go 
forward. 

Ursula  could  feel  her  suffering. 

"You  hate  this,  don't  you?"  she  asked. 

"It  bewilders  me,"  stammered  Gudrun. 

"You  won't  stay  long,"  replied  Ursula. 

And  Gudrun  went  along,  grasping  at  release. 

They  drew  away  from  the  colliery  region,  over  the  curve 
of  the  hill,  into  the  purer  country  of  the  other  side,  towards 
Willey  Green.  Still  the  faint  glamour  of  blackness  persisted 
over  the  fields  and  the  wooded  hills,  and  seemed  darkly  to 
gleam  in  the  air.  It  was  a  spring  day,  chill,  with  snatches  of 
sunshine.  Yellow  celandines  showed  out  from  the  hedge- 
bottoms,  and  in  the  cottage  gardens  of  Willey  Green,  currant- 
bushes  were  breaking  into  leaf,  and  little  flowers  were  coming 
white  on  the  grey  alyssum  that  hung  over  the  stone  walls. 

Turning,  they  passed  down  the  high-road,  that  went  be- 
tween high  banks  towards  the  church.  There,  in  the  lowest 
bend  of  the  road,  low  under  the  trees,  stood  a  little  group  of 
expectant  people,  waiting  to  see  the  wedding.  The  daughter 
of  the  chief  mine-owner  of  the  district,  Thomas  Crich,  was 
getting  married  to  a  naval  officer. 

"Let  us  go  back,"  said  Gudrun,  swerving  away.  "There 
are  all  those  people." 

And  she  hung  wavering  in  the  road. 

"Never  mind  them,"  said  Ursula,  "they're  all  right. 
They  all  know  me,  they  don't  matter." 

"But  must  we  go  through  them?"  asked  Gudrun. 

"They're  quite  all  right,  really,"  said  Ursula,  going  for- 
ward. And  together  the  two  sisters  approached  the  group 
of  uneasy,  watchful  common  people.  They  were  chiefly 
women,  colli. t's  wives  of  the  more  shiftless  sort.  They  had 
watchful,  underworld  faces. 


10  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

The  two  sisters  held  themselves  tense,  and  went  straight 
towards  the  gate.  The  women  made  way  for  them,  but 
barely  sufficient,  as  if  grudging  to  yield  ground.  The  sisters 
passed  in  silence  through  the  stone  gateway  and  up  the  steps, 
on  the  red  carpet,  a  policeman  estimating  their  progress. 

"What  price  the  stockings?"  said  a  voice  at  the  back  of 
Gudrun.  A  sudden  fierce  anger  swept  over  the  girl,  violent, 
and  murderous.  She  would  have  liked  them  all  annihilated, 
cleared  away,  so  that  the  world  was  left  clear  for  her.  How 
she  hated  walking  up  the  churchyard  path,  along  the  red 
carpet,  continuing  in  motion,  in  their  sight. 

"I  won't  go  into  the  church,"  she  said  suddenly,  with 
such  final  decision  that  Ursula  immediately  halted,  turned 
round,  and  branched  off  up  a  small  side  path  which  led  to 
the  little  private  gate  of  the  Grammar  School,  whose  grounds 
adjoined  those  of  the  church. 

Just  inside  the  gate  of  the  school  shrubbery,  outside  the 
churchyard,  Ursula  sat  down  for  a  moment  on  the  low  stone 
wall  under  the  laurel  bushes,  to  rest.  Behind  her,  the  large 
red  building  of  the  school  rose  up  peacefully,  the  windows  all 
open  for  the  holiday.  Over  the  shrubs,  before  her,  were  the 
pale  roofs  and  tower  of  the  old  church.  The  sisters  were 
hidden  by  the  foliage. 

Gudrun  sat  down  in  silence.  Her  mouth  was  shut  close, 
her  face  averted.  She  was  regretting  bitterly  that  she  had 
ever  come  back.  Ursula  looked  at  her,  and  thought  how 
amazingly  beautiful  she  was,  flushed  with  discomfiture.  But 
she  caused  a  constraint  over  Ursula's  nature,  a  certain  weari- 
ness. Ursula  wished  to  be  alone,  freed  from  the  tightness, 
the  enclosure  of  Gudrun's  presence. 

"Are  we  going  to  stay  here?"  asked  Gudrun. 

"I  was  only  resting  a  minute,"  said  Ursula,  getting  up  as 
if  rebuked.  "We  will  stand  in  the  corner  by  the  fives-court, 
we  shall  see  everything  from  there." 

For  the  moment,  the  sunshine  fell  brightly  into  the  church- 
yard, there  was  a  vague  scent  of  sap  and  of  spring,  perhaps 
of  violets  from  off  the  graves.  Some  white  daisies  were  out, 
bright  as  angels.  In  the  air,  the  unfolding  leaves  of  a  copper- 
beech  were  blood-red. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  11 

Punctually  at  eleven  o'clock,  the  carriages  began  to 
arrive.  There  was  a  stir  in  the  crowd  at  the  gate,  a  concen- 
tration as  a  carriage  drove  up,  wedding  guests  were  mounting 
up  the  steps  and  passing  along  the  red  carpet  to  the  church. 
They  were  all  gay  and  excited  because  the  sun  was  shining. 

Gudrun  watched  them  closely,  with  objective  curiosity. 
She  saw  each  one  as  a  complete  figure,  like  a  character  in  a 
book,  or  a  subject  in  a  picture,  or  a  marionette  in  a  theatre, 
a  finished  creation.  She  loved  to  recognize  their  various 
characteristics,  to  place  them  in  their  true  light,  give  them 
their  own  surroundings,  settle  them  for  ever  as  they  passed 
before  her  along  the  path  to  the  church.  She  knew  them, 
they  were  finished,  sealed  and  stamped  and  finished  with,  for 
her.  There  was  none  that  had  anything  unknown,  unre- 
solved, until  the  Cliches  themselves  began  to  appear.  Then 
her  interest  was  piqued.  Here  was  something  not  quite  so 
preconcluded. 

There  came  the  mother,  Mrs.  Crich,  with  her  eldest  son 
Gerald.  She  was  a  queer  unkempt  figure,  in  spite  of  the 
attempts  that  had  obviously  been  made  to  bring  her  into 
line  for  the  day.  Her  face  was  pale,  yellowish,  with  a  clear, 
transparent  skin,  she  leaned  forward  rather,  her  features  were 
strongly  marked,  handsome,  with  a  tense,  unseeing,  predative 
look.  Her  colourless  hair  was  untidy,  wisps  floating  down 
on  to  her  sac  coat  of  dark  blue  silk,  from  under  her  blue  silk 
hat.  She  looked  like  a  woman  with  a  monomania,  furtive 
almost,  but  heavily  proud. 

Her  son  was  of  a  fair,  sun-tanned  type,  rather  above  mid- 
dle height,  well-made,  and  almost  exaggeratedly  well-dressed. 
But  about  him  also  was  the  strange,  guarded  look,  the  uncon- 
scious glisten,  as  if  he  did  not  belong  to  the  same  creation  as 
the  people  about  him.  Gudrun  lighted  on  him  at  once. 
There  was  something  northern  about  him  that  magnetized 
her.  In  his  clear  northern  flesh  and  his  fair  hair  was  a  glisten 
like  sunshine  refracted  through  crystals  of  ice.  And  he 
looked  so  new,  unbroached,  pure  as  an  arctic  thing.  Per- 
haps he  was  thirty  years  old,  perhaps  more.  His  gleaming 
beauty,  maleness,  like  a  young,  good-humoured,  smiling  wolf, 
did  not  blind  her  to  the  significant,  sinister  stillness  in  his 


12  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

bearing,  the  lurking  danger  of  his  unsubdued  temper.  "His 
totem  is  the  wolf,"  she  repeated  to  herself.  "His  mother  is 
an  old,  unbroken  wolf."  And  then  she  experienced  a  keen 
paroxysm,  a  transport,  as  if  she  had  made  some  incredible 
discovery,  known  to  nobody  else  on  earth.  A  strange  trans- 
port took  possession  of  her,  all  her  veins  were  in  a  paroxysm 
of  violent  sensation.  "Good  God!"  she  exclaimed  to  her- 
self, "what  is  this?"  And  then,  a  moment  after,  she  was 
saying  assuredly,  "I  shall  know  more  of  that  man."  She 
was  tortured  with  desire  to  see  him  again,  a  nostalgia,  a  neces- 
sity to  see  him  again,  to  make  sure  it  was  not  all  a  mistake, 
that  she  was  not  deluding  herself,  that  she  really  felt  this 
strange  and  overwhelming  sensation  on  his  account,  this 
knowledge  of  him  in  her  essence,  this  powerful  apprehension 
of  him.  "Am  I  really  singled  out  for  him  in  some  way,  is 
there  really  some  pale  gold,  arctic  light  that  envelopes  only 
us  two?"  she  asked  herself.  And  she  could  not  believe  it, 
she  remained  in  a  muse,  scarcely  conscious  of  what  was  going 
on  around. 

The  bridesmaids  were  here,  and  yet  the  bridegroom  had 
not  come.  Ursula  wondered  if  something  was  amiss,  and  if 
the  wedding  would  yet  all  go  wrong.  She  felt  troubled,  as  if 
it  rested  upon  her.  The  chief  bridesmaids  had  arrived. 
Ursula  watched  them  come  up  the  steps.  One  of  them  she 
knew,  a  tall,  slow,  reluctant  woman  with  a  weight  of  fair 
hair  and  pale,  long  face.  This  was  Hermione  Roddice,  a 
friend  of  the  Criches.  Now  she  came  along,  with  her  head 
held  up,  balancing  an  enormous  flat  hat  of  pale  yellow  velvet, 
on  which  were  streaks  of  ostrich  feathers,  natural  and  grey. 
She  drifted  forward  as  if  scarcely  conscious,  her  long  blanched 
face  lifted  up,  not  to  see  the  world.  She  was  rich.  She 
wore  a  dress  of  silky,  frail  velvet,  of  pale  yellow  colour,  and 
she  carried  a  lot  of  small  rose-coloured  cyclamens.  Her  shoes 
and  stockings  were  of  brownish  grey,  like  the  feathers  on  her 
hat,  her  hair  was  heavy,  she  drifted  along  with  a  peculiar 
fixity  of  the  hips,  a  strange  unwilling  motion.  She  was  im- 
pressive, in  her  lovely  pale-yellow  and  brownish-rose,  yet 
macabre,  something  repulsive.  People  were  silent  when  she 
passed,    impressed,   roused,    wanting   to   jeer,   yet   for   some 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  13 

reason  silenced.  Her  long,  pale  face,  that  she  carried  lifted 
up,  somewhat  in  the  Rossetti  fashion,  seemed  almost  drugged, 
as  if  a  strange  mass  of  thoughts  coiled  in  the  darkness  within 
her,  and  she  was  never  allowed  to  escape. 

Ursula  watched  her  with  fascination.  She  knew  her  a 
little.  She  was  the  most  remarkable  woman  in  the  Mid- 
lands. Her  father  was  a  Derbyshire  Baronet  of  the  old 
school,  she  was  a  woman  of  the  new  school,  full  of  intellec- 
tuality, and  heavy,  nerve-worn  with  consciousness.  She  was 
passionately  interested  in  reform,  her  soul  was  given  up  to 
the  public  cause.  But  she  was  a  man's  woman,  it  was  the 
manly  world  that  held  her. 

She  had  various  intimacies  of  mind  and  soul  with  various 
men  of  capacity.  Ursula  knew,  among  these  men,  only 
Rupert  Birkin,  who  was  one  of  the  school-inspectors  of  the 
county.  But  Gudrun  had  met  others,  in  London.  Moving 
with  her  artist  friends  in  different  kinds  of  society,  Gudrun 
had  already  come  to  know  a  good  many  people  of  repute  and 
standing.  She  had  met  Hermione  twice,  but  they  did  not 
take  to  each  other.  It  would  be  queer  to  meet  again  down 
here  in  the  Midlands,  where  their  social  standing  was  so 
diverse,  after  they  had  known  each  other  on  terms  of  equality 
in  the  houses  of  sundry  acquaintances  in  town.  For  Gudrun 
had  been  a  social  success,  and  had  her  friends  among  the 
slack  aristocracy  that  keeps  touch  with  the  arts. 

Hermione  knew  herself  to  be  well-dressed;  she  knew  her- 
self to  be  the  social  equal,  if  not  far  the  superior,  of  anyone 
she  was  likely  to  meet  in  Willey  Green.  She  knew  she  was 
accepted  in  the  world  of  culture  and  of  intellect.  She  was  a 
Kulturtr tiger,  a  medium  for  the  culture  of  ideas.  With  all 
that  was  highest,  whether  in  society  or  in  thought  or  in  public 
action,  or  even  in  art,  she  was  at  one,  she  moved  among  the 
foremost,  at  home  with  them.  No  one  could  put  her  down, 
no  one  could  make  mock  of  her,  because  she  stood  among  the 
first,  and  those  that  were  against  her  were  below  her,  either 
in  rank,  or  in  wealth,  or  in  high  association  of  thought  and 
progress  and  understanding.  So,  she  was  invulnerable.  All 
her  life,  she  had  sought  to  make  herself  invulnerable,  un- 
assailable, beyond  reach  of  the  world's  judgment. 


14  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

And  yet  her  soul  was  tortured,  exposed.  Even  walking 
up  the  path  to  the  church,  confident  as  she  was  that  in  every 
respect  she  stood  beyond  all  vulgar  judgment,  knowing  per- 
fectly that  her  appearance  was  complete  and  perfect,  accord- 
ing to  the  first  standards,  yet  she  suffered  a  torture,  under 
her  confidence  and  her  pride,  feeling  herself  exposed  to  wounds 
and  to  mockery  and  to  despite.  She  always  felt  vulnerable, 
vulnerable,  there  was  always  a  secret  chink  in  her  armour. 
She  did  not  know  herself  what  it  was.  It  was  a  lack  of  robust 
self,  she  had  no  natural  sufficiency,  there  was  a  terrible  void, 
a  lack,  a  deficiency  of  being  within  her. 

And  she  wanted  some  one  to  close  up  this  deficiency,  to 
close  it  up  for  ever.  She  craved  for  Rupert  Birkin.  When 
he  was  there,  she  felt  complete,  she  was  sufficient,  whole.  For 
the  rest  of  time  she  was  established  on  the  sand,  built  over 
a  chasm,  and,  in  spite  of  all  her  vanity  and  securities,  any 
common  maid-servant  of  positive,  robust  temper  could  fling 
her  down  this  bottomless  pit  of  insufficiency,  by  the  slightest 
movement  of  jeering  or  contempt.  And  all  the  while  the 
pensive,  tortured  woman  piled  up  her  own  defences  of  aes- 
thetic knowledge,  and  culture,  and  world-visions,  and  disin- 
terestedness. Yet  she  could  never  stop  up  the  terrible  gap 
of  insufficiency. 

If  only  Birkin  would  form  a  close  and  abiding  connection 
with  her,  she  would  be  safe  during  this  fretful  voyage  of  life. 
He  could  make  her  sound  and  triumphant,  triumphant  over 
the  very  angels  of  heaven.  If  only  he  would  do  it!  But  she 
was  tortured  with  fear,  with  misgiving.  She  made  herself 
beautiful,  she  strove  so  hard  to  come  to  that  degree  of  beauty 
and  advantage,  when  he  should  be  convinced.  But  always 
there  was  a  deficiency. 

He  was  perverse  too.  He  fought  her  off,  he  always  fought 
her  off.  The  more  she  strove  to  bring  him  to  her,  the  more 
he  battled  her  back.  And  they  had  been  lovers  now,  for 
years.  Oh,  it  was  so  wearying,  so  aching;  she  was  so  tired. 
But  still  she  believed  in  herself.  She  knew  he  was  trying  to 
leave  her.  She  knew  he  was  trying  to  break  away  from  her 
finally,  to  be  free.  But  still  she  believed  in  her  strength  to 
keep  him,  she  believed  in  her  own  higher  knowledge.      His 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  15 

own  knowledge  was  high,  she  was  the  central  touchstone  of 
truth.      She  only  needed  his  conjunction  with  her. 

And  this,  this  conjunction  with  her,  which  was  his  highest 
fulfilment  also,  with  the  perverseness  of  a  wilful  child  he 
wanted  to  deny.  With  the  wilfulness  of  an  obstinate  child, 
he  wanted  to  break  the  holy  connection  that  was  between 


He  would  be  at  this  wedding;  he  was  to  be  groom's  man. 
He  would  be  in  the  church,  waiting.  He  would  know  when 
she  came.  She  shuddered  with  nervous  apprehension  and 
desire  as  she  went  through  the  church-door.  He  would  be 
there,  surely  he  would  see  how  beautiful  her  dress  was,  surely 
he  would  see  how  she  had  made  herself  beautiful  for  him. 
He  would  understand,  he  would  be  able  to  see  how  she  was 
made  for  him,  the  first,  how  she  was,  for  him,  the  highest. 
Surely  at  last  he  would  be  able  to  accept  his  highest  fate,  he 
would  not  deny  her. 

In  a  little  convulsion  of  too-tired  yearning,  she  entered 
the  church  and  looked  slowly  along  her  cheeks  for  him,  her 
slender  body  convulsed  with  agitation.  As  best  man,  he 
would  be  standing  beside  the  altar.  She  looked  slowly,  de- 
ferring in  her  certainty. 

And  then,  he  was  not  there.  A  terrible  storm  came  over 
her,  as  if  she  were  drowning.  She  was  possessed  by  a  devas- 
tating hopelessness.  And  she  approached  mechanically  to 
the  altar.  Never  had  she  known  such  a  pang  of  utter  and 
final  hopelessness.  It  was  beyond  death,  so  utterly  null, 
desert. 

The  bridegroom  and  the  groom's  man  had  not  yet  come. 
There  was  a  growing  consternation  outside.  Ursula  felt 
almost  responsible.  She  could  not  bear  it  that  the  bride 
should  arrive,  and  no  groom.  The  wedding  must  not  be  a 
fiasco,  it  must  not. 

But  here  was  the  bride's  carriage,  adorned  with  ribbons 
and  cockades.  Gaily  the  grey  horses  curvetted  to  their 
destination  at  the  church-gate,  a  laughter  in  the  whole  move- 
ment. Here  was  the  quick  of  all  laughter  and  pleasure. 
The  door  of  the  carriage  was  thrown  open,  to  let  out  the 
very   blossom   of    the   day.       The   people   on    the   roadway 


16  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

murmured  faintly  with  the  discontented  murmuring  of  a 
crowd. 

The  father  stepped  out  first  into  the  air  of  the  morning, 
like  a  shadow.  He  was  a  tall,  thin,  care-worn  man,  with  a 
thin  black  beard  that  was  touched  with  grey.  He  waited 
at  the  door  of  the  carriage  patiently,  self-obliterated. 

In  the  opening  of  the  doorway  was  a  shower  of  fine  foliage 
and  flowers,  a  whiteness  of  satin  and  lace,  and  a  sound  of  a 
gay  voice,  saying: 

"How  do  I  get  out?" 

A  ripple  of  satisfaction  ran  through  the  expectant  people. 
They  pressed  near  to  receive  her,  looking  with  zest  at  the 
stooping  blond  head  with  its  flowerbuds,  and  at  the  delicate, 
white,  tentative  foot  that  was  reaching  down  to  the  step  of 
the  carriage.  There  was  a  sudden  foaming  rush,  and  the 
bride  like  a  sudden  surf-rush,  floating  all  white  beside  her 
father  in  the  morning  shadow  of  trees,  her  veil  flowing  with 
laughter. 

"That's  done  it!"  she  said. 

She  put  her  hand  on  the  arm  of  her  care-worn,  sallow 
father,  and  frothing  her  light  draperies,  proceeded  over  the 
eternal  red  carpet.  Her  father,  mute  and  yellowish,  his 
black  beard  making  him  look  more  care-worn,  mounted  the 
steps  stiffly,  as  if  his  spirit  were  absent;  but  the  laughing 
mist  of  the  bride  went  along  with  him  undiminished. 

And  no  bridegroom  had  arrived!  It  was  intolerable  for 
her.  Ursula,  her  heart  strained  with  anxiety,  was  watching 
the  hill  beyond;  the  white,  descending  road,  that  should 
give  sight  of  him.  There  was  a  carriage.  It  was  running. 
It  had  just  come  into  sight.  Yes,  it  was  he.  Ursula  turned 
towards  the  bride  and  the  people,  and,  from  her  place  of 
vantage,  gave  an  inarticulate  cry.  She  wanted  to  warn  them 
that  he  was  coming.  But  her  cry  was  inarticulate  and  in- 
audible, and  she  flushed  deeply,  between  her  desire  and  her 
wincing  confusion. 

The  carriage  rattled  down  the  hill,  and  drew  near.  There 
was  a  shout  from  the  people.  The  bride,  who  had  just  reached 
the  top  of  the  steps,  turned  round  gaily  to  see  what  was  the 
commotion.      She  saw  a  confusion  among  the  people,  a  cab 


Women  in  love  w 

pulling  up,  and  her  lover  dropping  out  of  the  carriage,  and 
dodging  among  the  horses  and  into  the  crowd. 

"Tibs!  Tibs!"  she  cried  in  her  sudden,  mocking  excite- 
ment, standing  high  on  the  path  in  the  sunlight  and  waving 
her  bouquet.  He,  dodging  with  his  hat  in  his  hand,  had  not 
heard. 

"Tibs!"  she  cried  again,  looking  down  to  him. 

He  glanced  up,  unaware,  and  saw  the  bride  and  her  father 
standing  on  the  path  above  him.  A  queer,  startled  look 
went  over  his  face.  He  hesitated  for  a  moment.  Then  he 
gathered  himself  together  for  the  leap,  to  overtake  her. 

"Ah-h-h!"  came  her  strange,  intaken  cry,  as,  on  the  reflex, 
she  started,  turned  and  fled,  scudding  with  an  unthinkable 
swift  beating  of  her  white  feet  and  fraying  of  her  white  gar- 
ments, towards  the  church.  Like  a  hound  the  young  man 
was  after  her,  leaping  the  steps  and  swinging  past  her  father, 
his  supple  haunches  working  like  those  of  a  hound  that  bears 
down  on  the  quarry. 

"Ay,  after  her!"  cried  the  vulgar  woman  below,  carried 
suddenly  into  the  sport. 

She,  her  flowers  shaken  from  her  like  froth,  was  steadying 
herself  to  turn  the  angle  of  the  church.  She  glanced  behind, 
and  with  a  wild  cry  of  laughter  and  challenge,  veered,  poised, 
and  was  gone  beyond  the  grey  stone  buttress.  In  another 
instant  the  bridegroom,  bent  forward  as  he  ran,  had  caught 
the  angle  of  the  silent  stone  with  his  hand,  and  had  swung 
himself  out  of  sight,  his  supple,  strong  loins  vanishing  in 
pursuit. 

Instantly  cries  and  exclamations  of  excitement  burst  from 
the  crowd  at  the  gate.  And  then  Ursula  noticed  again  the 
dark,  rather  stooping  figure  of  Mr.  Crich,  waiting  suspended 
on  the  path,  watching  with  expressionless  face  the  flight  to 
the  church.  It  was  over,  and  he  turned  round  to  look  be- 
hind him,  at  the  figure  of  Rupert  Birkin,  who  at  once  came 
forward  and  joined  him. 

"We'll  bring  up  the  rear,"  said  Birkin,  a  faint  smile  on  his 
face. 

"Ay!"  replied  the  father  laconically.  And  the  two  men 
turned  together  up  the  path. 


18  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

Birkin  was  as  thin  as  Mr.  Crich,  pale  and  ill-looking. 
His  figure  was  narrow  but  nicely  made.  He  went  with  a 
slight  trail  of  one  foot,  which  came  only  from  self-conscious- 
ness. Although  he  was  dressed  correctly  for  his  part,  yet 
there  was  an  innate  incongruity  which  caused  a  slight  ridicu- 
lousness in  his  appearance.  His  nature  was  clever  and  sepa- 
rate, he  did  not  fit  at  all  in  the  conventional  occasion.  Yet  he 
subordinated  himself  to  the  common  idea,  travestied  himself. 

He  affected  to  be  quite  ordinary,  perfectly  and  marvel- 
lously commonplace.  And  he  did  it  so  well,  taking  the  tone 
of  his  surroundings,  adjusting  himself  quickly  to  his  inter- 
locutor and  his  circumstance,  that  he  achieved  a  verisimilitude 
of  ordinary  commonplaceness  that  usually  propitiated  his  on- 
lookers for  the  moment,  disarmed  them  from  attacking  his 
singleness. 

Now  he  spoke  quite  easily  and  pleasantly  to  Mr.  Crich, 
as  they  walked  along  the  path;  he  played  with  situations  like 
a  man  on  a  tight-rope;  but  always  on  a  tight-rope,  pretending 
nothing  but  ease. 

"I'm  sorry  we  are  so  late,"  he  was  saying.  "We  couldn't 
find  a  button-hook,  so  it  took  us  a  long  time  to  button  our 
boots.      But  you  were  to  the  moment." 

"We  are  usually  to  time,"  said  Mr.  Crich. 

"And  I'm  always  late,"  said  Birkin.  "But  to-day  I  was 
really  punctual,  only  accidentally  not  so.      I'm  sorry." 

The  two  men  were  gone,  there  was  nothing  more  to  see, 
for  the  time.  Ursula  was  left  thinking  about  Birkin.  He 
piqued  her,  attracted  her,  and  annoyed  her. 

She  wanted  to  know  him  more.  She  had  spoken  with 
him  once  or  twice,  but  only  in  his  official  capacity  as  inspector. 
She  thought  he  seemed  to  acknowledge  some  kinship  between 
her  and  him,  a  natural,  tacit  understanding,  a  using  of  the 
same  language.  But  there  had  been  no  time  for  the  under- 
standing to  develop.  And  something  kept  her  from  him,  as 
well  as  attracted  her  to  him.  There  was  a  certain  hostility, 
a  hidden  ultimate  reserve  in  him,  cold  and  inaccessible. 

Yet  she  wanted  to  know  him. 

"What  do  you  think  of  Rupert  Birkin?"  she  asked,  a  little 
reluctantly,  of  Gudrun.     She  did  not  want  to  discuss  him. 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  19 

"What  do  I  think  of  Rupert  Birkin?"  repeated  Gudrun. 
"I  think  he's  attractive — decidedly  attractive. — What  I  can't 
stand  about  him  is  his  way  with  other  people — his  way  of 
treating  any  little  fool  as  if  she  were  his  greatest  considera- 
tion.    One  feels  so  awfully  sold,  oneself." 

"Why  does  he  do  it?"  said  Ursula. 

"Because  he  has  no  real  critical  faculty — of  people,  at 
all  events,"  said  Gudrun.  "I  tell  you,  he  treats  any  little 
fool  as  he  treats  me  or  you — and  it's  such  an  insult." 

"Oh,  it  is,"  said  Ursula.     "One  must  discriminate." 

"One  must  discriminate,"  repeated  Gudrun. — "But  he's  a 
wonderful  chap,  in  other  respects — a  marvellous  personality. 
But  you  can't  trust  him." 

"Yes,"  said  Ursula  vaguely.  She  was  always  forced  to 
assent  to  Gudrun's  pronouncements,  even  when  she  was  not 
in  accord  altogether. 

The  sisters  sat  silent,  waiting  for  the  wedding  party  to 
come  out.  Gudrun  was  impatient  of  talk.  She  wanted  to 
think  about  Gerald  Crich.  She  wanted  to  see  if  the  strong 
feeling  she  had  got  from  him  was  real.  She  wanted  to  have 
herself  ready. 

Inside  the  church,  the  wedding  was  going  on.  Hermione 
Roddice  was  thinking  only  of  Birkin.  He  stood  near  her. 
She  seemed  to  gravitate  physically  towards  him.  She  wanted 
to  stand  touching  him.  She  could  hardly  be  sure  he  was 
near  her,  if  she  did  not  touch  him.  Yet  she  stood  subjected 
through  the  wedding  service. 

She  had  suffered  so  bitterly  when  he  did  not  come,  that 
still  she  was  dazed.  Still  she  was  gnawed  as  by  a  neuralgia, 
tormented  by  his  potential  absence  from  her.  She  had 
awaited  him  in  a  faint  delirium  of  nervous  torture.  As  she 
stood  bearing  herself  pensively,  the  rapt  look  on  her  face, 
that  seemed  spiritual,  like  the  angels,  but  which  came  from 
torture,  gave  her  a  certain  poignancy  that  tore  his  heart  with 
pity.  He  saw  her  bowed  head,  her  rapt  face,  the  face  of  an 
almost  demoniacal  ecstatic.  Feeling  him  looking,  she  lifted 
her  face  and  sought  his  eyes,  her  own  beautiful  grey  eyes 
flaring  him  a  great  signal.  But  he  avoided  her  look,  she  sank 
her  head  in  torment  and  shame,  the  gnawing  at  her  heart 


20  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

going  on.  And  he,  too,  was  tortured  with  shame,  and  ulti- 
mate dislike,  and  with  acute  pity  for  her,  because  he  did  not 
want  to  meet  her  eyes,  he  did  not  want  to  receive  her  flare 
of  recognition. 

The  bride  and  bridegroom  were  married,  the  party  went 
into  the  vestry.  Hermione  crowded  involuntarily  up  against 
Birkin,  to  touch  him.      And  he  endured  it. 

Outside,  Gudrun  and  Ursula  listened  for  their  father's 
playing  on  the  organ.  He  would  enjoy  playing  a  wedding 
march. — Now  the  married  pair  were  coming!  The  bells  were 
ringing,  making  the  air  shake.  Ursula  wondered  if  the  trees 
and  the  flowers  could  feel  the  vibration,  and  what  they  thought 
of  it,  this  strange  motion  in  the  air.  The  bride  was  quite 
demure  on  the  arm  of  the  bridegroom,  who  stared  up  into 
the  sky  before  him,  shutting  and  opening  his  eyes  uncon- 
sciously, as  if  he  were  neither  here  nor  there.  He  looked 
rather  comical,  blinking  and  trying  to  be  in  the  scene,  when 
emotionally,  he  was  violated  by  his  exposure  to  a  crowd. 
He  looked  a  typical  naval  officer,  manly,  and  up  to  his  duty. 

Birkin  came  with  Hermione.  She  had  a  rapt,  triumphant 
look,  like  the  fallen  angels  restored,  yet  still  subtly  demoniacal, 
now  she  held  Birkin  by  the  arm.  And  he  was  expressionless, 
neutralized,  possessed  by  her  as  if  it  were  his  fate,  without 
question. 

Gerald  Crich  came,  fair,  good  looking,  healthy,  with  a 
great  reserve  of  energy.  He  was  erect  and  complete,  there 
was  a  strange  stealth  glistening  through  his  amiable,  almost 
happy  appearance.  Gudrun  rose  sharply  and  went  away. 
She  could  not  bear  it.  She  wanted  to  be  alone,  to  know 
this  strange,  sharp  inoculation  that  had  changed  the  whole 
temper  of  her  blood. 


CHAPTER  n 

THE  Brangwens  went  home  to  Beldover,  the  wedding- 
party  gathered  at  Shortlands,  the  Criches'  home.  It 
was  a  long,  low  old  house,  a  sort  of  manor  farm,  that 
spread  along  the  top  of  a  slope  just  beyond  the  narrow  little 
lake  of  Willey  Water.  Shortlands  looked  across  a  sloping 
meadow  that  might  be  a  park,  because  of  the  large,  solitary 
trees  that  stood  here  and  there,  across  the  water  of  the  nar- 
row lake,  at  the  wooded  hill  that  successfully  hid  the  colliery 
valley  beyond,  but  did  not  quite  hide  the  rising  smoke.  Never- 
theless, the  scene  was  rural  and  picturesque,  very  peaceful,  and 
the  house  had  a  charm  of  its  own. 

It  was  crowded  now  with  the  family  and  the  wedding 
guests.  The  father,  who  was  not  well,  withdrew  to  rest. 
Gerald  was  host.  He  stood  in  the  homely  entrance  hall, 
friendly  and  easy,  attending  to  the  men.  He  seemed  to  take 
pleasure  in  his  social  functions,  he  smiled  and  was  abundant 
in  hospitality. 

The  women  wandered  about  in  a  little  confusion,  chased 
hither  and  thither  by  the  three  married  daughters  of  the 
house.  All  the  while  there  could  be  heard  the  characteristic, 
imperious  voice  of  one  Crich  woman  or  another  calling,  "Helen, 
come  here  a  minute,"  "Marjory,  I  want  you — here."  "Oh, 
I  say,  Mrs.  Witham — ".  There  was  a  great  rustling  of  skirts, 
swift  glimpses  of  smartly-dressed  women,  a  child  danced 
through  the  hall  and  back  again,  a  maid-servant  came  and 
went  hurriedly. 

Meanwhile  the  men  stood  in  calm  little  groups,  chatting, 
smoking,  pretending  to  pay  no  heed  to  the  rustling  animation 
of  the  women's  world.  But  they  could  not  really  talk,  be- 
cause of  the  glassy  ravel  of  women's  excited,  cold  laughter 
and  running  voices.  They  waited,  uneasy,  suspended,  rather 
bored.  But  Gerald  remained  as  if  genial  and  happy,  unaware 
that  he  was  waiting  or  unoccupied,  knowing  himself  the  very 
pivot  of  the  occasion. 

21 


22  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

Suddenly  Mrs.  Crich  came  noiselessly  into  the  room,  peer- 
ing about  with  her  strong,  clear  face.  She  was  still  wearing 
her  hat,  and  her  sac  coat  of  blue  silk. 

"What  is  it,  mother?"  said  Gerald. 

"Nothing,  nothing!"  she  answered  vaguely.  And  she 
went  straight  towards  Birkin,  who  was  talking  to  a  Crich 
brother-in-law. 

"How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Birkin,"  she  said,  in  her  low  voice, 
that  seemed  to  take  no  count  of  her  guests.  She  held  out 
her  hand  to  him. 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Crich,"  replied  Birkin,  in  his  readily-changing 
voice,  "I  couldn't  come  to  you  before." 

"I  don't  know  half  the  people  here,"  she  said,  in  her  low 
voice.     Her  son-in-law  moved  uneasily  away. 

"And  you  don't  like  strangers?"  laughed  Birkin.  "I  my- 
self can  never  see  why  one  should  take  account  of  people, 
just  because  they  happen  to  be  in  the  room  with  one:  why 
should  I  know  they  are  there?" 

"Why  indeed,  why  indeed!"  said  Mrs.  Crich,  in  her  low, 
tense  voice.  "Except  that  they  are  there. — /  don't  know 
people  whom  I  find  in  the  house.  The  children  introduce 
them  to  me — 'Mother,  this  is  Mr.  So-and-so.'  I  am  no 
further.  What  has  Mr.  So-and-so  to  do  with  his  own  name? 
— and  what  have  I  to  do  with  either  him  or  his  name?" 

She  looked  up  at  Birkin.  She  startled  him.  He  was 
flattered  too  that  she  came  to  talk  to  him,  for  she  took  hardly 
any  notice  of  anybody.  He  looked  down  at  her  tense  clear 
face,  with  its  heavy  features,  but  he  was  afraid  to  look  into 
her  heavy-seeing  blue  eyes.  He  noticed  instead  how  her 
hair  looped  in  slack,  slovenly  strands  over  her  rather  beau- 
tiful ears,  which  were  not  quite  clean.  Neither  was  her 
neck  perfectly  clean.  Even  in  that  he  seemed  to  belong  to 
her,  rather  than  to  the  rest  of  the  company;  though,  he 
thought  to  himself,  he  was  always  well-washed,  at  any  rate 
at  the  neck  and  ears. 

He  smiled  faintly,  thinking  these  things.  Yet  he  was 
tense,  feeling  that  he  and  the  elderly,  estranged  woman  were 
conferring  together  like  traitors,  like  enemies  within  the  camp 
of  the  other  people.      He  resembled  a  deer,  that  throws  one 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  28 

ear  back  upon  the  trail  behind,  and  one  ear  forward,  to  know 
what  is  ahead. 

"People  don't  really  matter,"  he  said,  rather  unwilling  to 
continue. 

The  mother  looked  up  at  him  with  sudden,  dark  interro- 
gation, as  if  doubting  his  sincerity. 

"How  do  you  mean,  jnatter?"  she  asked  sharply. 

"Not  many  people  are  anything  at  all,"  he  answered, 
forced  to  go  deeper  than  he  wanted  to.  "They  jingle  and 
giggle.  It  would  be  much  better  if  they  were  just  wiped 
out.     Essentially,  they  don't  exist,  they  aren't  there." 

She  watched  him  steadily  while  he  spoke. 

"But  we  don't  imagine  them,"  she  said  sharply. 

"There's  nothing  to  imagine,  that's  why  they  don't  exist." 

"Well,"  she  said,  "I  would  hardly  go  as  far  as  that.  There 
they  are,  whether  they  exist  or  no.  It  doesn't  rest  with  me 
to  decide  on  their  existence.  I  only  know  that  I  can't  be 
expected  to  take  count  of  them  all.  You  can't  expect  me  to 
know  them,  just  because  they  happen  to  be  there.  As  far 
as  /  go  they  might  as  well  not  be  there." 

"Exactly,"  he  replied. 

"Mightn't  they?"  she  asked  again. 

"Just  as  well,"  he  repeated.     And  there  was  a  little  pause. 

"Except  that  they  are  there,  and  that's  a  nuisance,"  she 
said.  "There  are  my  sons-in-law,"  she  went  on,  in  a  sort  of 
monologue.  "Now  Laura's  got  married,  there's  another. 
And  I  really  don't  know  John  from  James  yet.  They  come 
up  to  me  and  call  me  mother.  I  know  what  they  will  say — 
'How  are  you,  mother?'  I  ought  to  say,  T  am  not  your 
mother,  in  any  sense.'  But  what  is  the  use?  There  they 
are.  I  have  had  children  of  my  own.  I  suppose  I  know 
them  from  another  woman's  children." 

"One  would  suppose  so,"  he  said. 

She  looked  at  him,  somewhat  surprised,  forgetting  perhaps 
that  she  was  talking  to  him.     And  she  last  her  thread. 

She  looked  round  the  room,  vaguely.  Birkin  could  not 
guess  what  she  was  looking  for,  nor  what  she  was  thinking. 
Evidently  she  noticed  her  sons. 

"Are  my  children  all  there?"  she  asked  him  abruptly. 


24  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

He  laughed,  startled,  afraid  perhaps. 
"I  scarcely  know  them,  except  Gerald,"  he  replied. 
"Gerald!"   she   exclaimed.       "He's   the   most   missing   of 
them  all.     You'd  never  think  it,  to  look  at  him  now,  would 


you 


"No,"  said  Birkin. 

The  mother  looked  across  at  her  eldest  son,  stared  at  him 
heavily  for  some  time. 

"Ay,"  she  said,  in  an  incomprehensible  monosyllable,  that 
sounded  profoundly  cynical.  Birkin  felt  afraid,  as  if  he 
dared  not  realise.  And  Mrs.  Crich  moved  away,  forgetting 
him.     But  she  returned  on  her  traces. 

"I  should  like  him  to  have  a  friend,"  she  said.  "He  has 
never  had  a  friend." 

Birkin  looked  down  into  her  eyes,  which  were  blue,  and 
watching  heavily.  He  could  not  understand  them.  "Am  I 
my  brother's  keeper?"  he  said  to  himself,  almost  flippantly. 

Then  he  remembered,  with  a  slight  shock,  that  that  was 
Cain's  cry.  And  Gerald  was  Cain,  if  anybody.  Not  that 
he  was  Cain,  either,  although  he  had  slain  his  brother.  There 
was  such  a  thing  as  pure  accident,  and  the  consequences  did 
not  attach  to  one,  even  though  one  had  killed  one's  brother 
in  such  wise.  Gerald  as  a  boy  had  accidentally  killed  his 
brother.  What  then?  Why  seek  to  draw  a  brand  and  a 
curse  across  the  life  that  had  caused  the  accident?  A  man 
can  live  by  accident,  and  die  by  accident.  Or  can  he  not? 
Is  every  man's  life  subject  to  pure  accident,  is  it  only  the  race, 
the  genus,  the  species,  that  has  a  universal  reference?  Or  is 
this  not  true,  is  there  no  such  thing  as  pure  accident?  Has 
everything  that  happens  a  universal  significance?  Has  it? 
Birkin,  pondering  as  he  stood  there,  had  forgotten  Mrs.  Crich, 
as  she  had  forgotten  him. 

He  did  not  believe  that  there  was  any  such  thing  as  acci- 
dent.     It  all  hung  together,  in  the  deepest  sense. 

Just  as  he  had  decided  this  one  of  the  Crich  daughters 
came  up,  saying: 

"Won't  you  come  and  take  your  hat  off,  mother  dear? 
We  shall  be  sitting  down  to  eat  in  a  minute,  and  it's  a  formal 
occasion,  darling,  isn't  it?" — She  drew  her  arm  through  her 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  25 

mother's,  and  they  went  away.  Birkin  immediately  went  to 
talk  to  the  nearest  man. 

The  gong  sounded  for  the  luncheon.  The  men  looked  up, 
but  no  move  was  made  to  the  dining-room.  The  women  of 
the  house  seemed  not  to  feel  that  the  sound  had  meaning  for 
them.  Five  minutes  passed  by.  The  elderly  man-servant, 
Crowther,  appeared  in  the  doorway  exasperatedly.  He 
looked  with  appeal  at  Gerald.  The  latter  took  up  a  large, 
curved  conch  shell,  that  lay  on  a  shelf,  and  without  reference 
to  anybody,  blew  a  shattering  blast.  It  was  a  strange  rous- 
ing noise,  that  made  the  heart  beat.  The  summons  was 
almost  magical.  Everybody  came  running,  as  if  at  a  signal. 
And  then  the  crowd  in  one  impulse  moved  to  the  dining- 
room. 

Gerald  waited  a  moment,  for  his  sister  to  play  hostess. 
He  knew  his  mother  would  pay  no  attention  to  her  duties. 
But  his  sister  merely  crowded  to  her  seat.  Therefore  the 
young  man,  slightly  too  dictatorial,  directed  the  guests  to 
their  places. 

There  was  a  moment's  lull,  as  everybody  looked  at  the 
hors  (Toeuvres  that  were  being  handed  round.  And  out  of 
this  lull,  a  girl  of  thirteen  or  fourteen,  with  her  long  hair  down 
her  back,  said  in  a  calm,  self-possessed  voice: 

"Gerald,  you  forget  father,  when  you  make  that  unearthly 
noise." 

"Do  I?"  he  answered.  And  then,  to  the  company,  "Father 
ia  lying  down,  he  is  not  quite  well." 

"How  is  he,  really?"  called  one  of  the  married  daughters, 
peeping  round  the  immense  wedding  cake  that  towered  up  in 
the  middle  of  the  table,  shedding  its  artificial  flowers. 

"He  has  no  pain,  but  he  feels  tired,"  replied  Winifred,  the 
girl  with  the  hair  down  her  back. 

The  wine  was  filled,  and  everybody  was  talking  boister- 
ously. At  the  far  end  of  the  table  sat  the  mother,  with  her 
loosely-looped  hair.  She  had  Birkin  for  a  neighbour.  Some- 
times she  glanced  fiercely  down  the  rows  of  faces,  bending 
forwards  and  staring  unceremoniously.  And  she  would  say 
in  a  low  voice  to  Birkin: 

"Who  U  that  young  man?" 


26  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

"I  don't  know,"  Birkin  answered  discreetly. 

"Have  I  seen  him  before?"  she  asked. 

"I  don't  think  so.  J  haven't,"  he  replied.  And  she  was 
satisfied.  Her  eyes  closed  wearily,  a  peace  came  over  her 
face,  she  looked  like  a  queen  in  repose.  Then  she  started,  a 
little  social  smile  came  on  her  face,  for  a  moment  she  looked 
the  pleasant  hostess.  For  a  moment  she  bent  graciously,  as 
if  everyone  were  welcome  and  delightful.  And  then  imme- 
diately the  shadow  came  back,  a  sullen,  eagle  look  was  on 
her  face,  she  glanced  from  under  her  brows  like  a  sinister 
creature  at  bay,  hating  them  all. 

"Mother,"  called  Diana,  a  handsome  girl  a  little  older  than 
Winifred,  "I  may  have  wine,  mayn't  I?" 

"Yes,  you  may  have  wine,"  replied  the  mother  automatic- 
ally, for  she  was  perfectly  indifferent  to  the  question. 

And  Diana  beckoned  to  the  footman  to  fill  her  glass. 

"Gerald  shouldn't  forbid  me,"  she  said  calmly,  to  the  com- 
pany at  large. 

"All  right,  Di,"  said  her  brother  amiably.  And  she  was 
afraid  of  him  as  she  drank  from  her  glass. 

There  was  a  strange  freedom,  that  almost  amounted  to 
anarchy,  in  the  house.  It  was  rather  a  resistance  to  authority, 
than  liberty.  Gerald  had  some  command,  by  mere  force  of 
personality,  not  because  of  any  granted  position.  There  was 
a  quality  in  his  voice,  amiable  but  dominant,  that  cowed  the 
others,  who  were  all  younger  than  he. 

Hermione  was  having  a  discussion  with  the  bridegroom 
about  nationality. 

"No,"  she  said,  "I  think  that  the  appeal  to  patriotism  is 
a  mistake.  It  is  like  one  house  of  business  rivalling  another 
house  of  business." 

"Well  you  can  hardly  say  that,  can  you?"  exclaimed  Ger- 
ald, who  had  a  real  passion  for  discussion.  "You  couldn't 
call  a  race  a  business  concern,  could  you? — and  nationality 
roughly  corresponds  to  race,  I  think. — I  think  it  is  meant  to." 

There  was  a  moment's  pause.  Gerald  and  Hermione  were 
always  strangely  but  politely  and  evenly  inimical. 

"Do  you  think  race  corresponds  with  nationality?"  she 
asked  musingly  with  expressionless  indecision. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  27 

Birkin  knew  she  was  waiting  for  him  to  participate.  And 
dutifully  he  spoke  up: 

"I  think  Gerald  is  right — race  is  the  essential  element  in 
nationality  in  Europe  at  least,"  he  said. 

Again  Hermione  paused,  as  if  to  allow  this  statement  to 
cool.     Then  she  said  with  strange  assumption  of  authority: 

"Yes,  but  even  so,  is  the  patriotic  appeal  an  appeal  to  the 
racial  instinct?  Is  it  not  rather  an  appeal  to  the  proprietary 
instinct,  the  commercial  instinct?  And  isn't  this  what  we 
mean  by  nationality?" 

"Probably,"  said  Birkin,  who  felt  that  such  a  discussion 
was  out  of  place  and  out  of  time. 

But  Gerald  was  now  on  the  scent  of  argument. 

"A  race  may  have  its  commercial  aspect,"  he  said.  "In 
fact  it  must.  It  is  like  a  family.  You  must  make  pro- 
vision. And  to  make  provision  you  have  got  to  strive 
Against  other  families,  other  nations.  I  don't  see  why  you 
shouldn't." 

Again  Hermione  made  a  pause,  domineering  and  cold,  be- 
fore she  replied:  "Yes,  I  think  it  is  always  wrong  to  provoke 
a  spirit  of  rivalry.  It  makes  bad  blood.  And  bad  blood 
accumulates." 

"But  you  can't  do  away  with  the  spirit  of  emulation  alto- 
gether," said  Gerald.  "It  is  one  of  the  necessary  incentives 
to  production  and  improvement." 

"Yes,"  came  Hermione's  sauntering  response.  "I  think 
you  can  do  away  with  it." 

"I  must  say,"  said  Birkin,  "I  detest  the  spirit  of  emula- 
tion." Hermione  was  biting  a  piece  of  bread,  pulling  it  from 
between  her  teeth  with  her  fingers,  in  a  slow,  slightly  derisive 
movement.     She  turned  to  Birkin. 

"You  do  hate  it,  yes,"  she  said,  intimate  and  gratified. 

"Detest  it,"  he  repeated. 

"Yes,"  she  murmured,  assured  and  satisfied. 

"But,"  Gerald  insisted,  "you  don't  allow  one  man  to  take 
uway  his  neighbour's  living,  so  why  should  you  allow  one 
nation  to  take  away  the  living  from  another  nation?" 

There  was  a  long,  slow  murmur  from  Hermione  before  she 
broke  into  speech,  saying  with  a  laconic  indifference: 


28  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"It  is  not  always  a  question  of  possessions,  is  it?  It  is 
not  all  a  question  of  goods?" 

Gerald  was  nettled  by  this  implication  of  vulgar  material- 
ism. 

"Yes,  more  or  less,"  he  retorted.  "If  I  go  and  take  a 
man's  hat  from  off  his  head,  that  hat  becomes  a  symbol  of 
that  man's  liberty.  When  he  fights  me  for  his  hat,  he  is 
fighting  me  for  his  liberty." 

Hermione  was  non-plussed. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  irritated.  "But  that  way  of  arguing  by 
imaginary  instances  is  not  supposed  to  be  genuine,  is  it?  A 
man  does  not  come  and  take  my  hat  from  off  my  head,  does  he?" 

"Only  because  the  law  prevents  him,"  said  Gerald. 

"Not  only,"  said  Birkin.  "Ninety-nine  men  out  of  a 
hundred  don't  want  my  hat." 

"That's  a  matter  of  opinion,"  said  Gerald. 

"Or  the  hat,"  laughed  the  bridegroom. 

"And  if  he  does  want  my  hat,  such  as  it  is,"  said  Birkin, 
"why  surely  it  is  open  to  me  to  decide,  which  is  a  greater  loss 
to  me,  my  hat,  or  my  liberty  as  a  free  and  indifferent  man. 
If  I  am  compelled  to  offer  fight,  I  lose  the  latter.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion which  is  worth  more  to  me,  my  pleasant  liberty  of  con- 
duct, or  my  hat." 

"Yes,"  said  Hermione,  watching  Birkin  strangely.     "Yes." 

"But  would  you  let  somebody  come  and  snatch  your  hat 
off  your  head?"  the  bride  asked  of  Hermione. 

The  face  of  the  tall  straight  woman  turned  slowly  and  as 
if  drugged  to  this  new  speaker. 

"No,"  she  replied,  in  a  low  inhuman  tone,  that  seemed  to 
contain  a  chuckle.  "No,  I  shouldn't  let  anybody  take  my 
hat  off  my  head." 

"How  would  you  prevent  it?"  asked  Gerald. 

"I  don't  know,"  replied  Hermione  slowly.  '  Probably  I 
should  kill  him." 

There  was  a  strange  chuckle  in  her  tone,  a  dangerous  and 
convincing  humour  in  her  bearing. 

"Of  course,"  said  Gerald,  "I  can  see  Rupert's  point.  It 
is  a  question  to  him  whether  his  hat  or  his  peace  of  mind  is 
more  important." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  29 

"Peace  of  body,"  said  Birkin. 

"Well,  as  you  like  there,"  replied  Gerald.  "But  how  are 
you  going  to  decide  this  for  a  nation?" 

"Heaven  preserve  me,"  laughed  Birkin. 

"Yes,  but  suppose  you  have  to?"  Gerald  persisted. 

"Then  it  is  the  same.  If  the  national  crown-piece  is  an 
old  hat,  then  the  thieving  gent  may  have  it." 

"But  can  the  national  or  racial  hat  be  an  old  hat?"  insisted 
Gerald. 

"Pretty  well  bound  to  be,  I  believe,"  said  Birkin. 

"I'm  not  so  sure,"  said  Gerald. 

"I  don't  agree,  Rupert,"  said  Hermione. 

"All  right,"  said  Birkin. 

"I'm  all  for  the  old  national  hat,"  laughed  Gerald. 

"And  a  fool  you  look  in  it,"  cried  Diana,  his  pert  sister 
who  was  just  in  her  teens. 

"Oh,  we're  quite  out  of  our  depths  with  these  old  hats," 
cried  Laura  Crich.  "Dry  up  now,  Gerald.  We're  going  to 
drink  toasts.  Let  us  drink  toasts.  Toasts — glasses,  glasses, 
— now  then,  toasts!     Speech!     Speech!" 

Birkin,  thinking  about  race  or  national  death,  watched  his 
glass  being  filled  with  champagne.  The  bubbles  broke  at  the 
rim,  the  man  withdrew,  and  feeling  a  sudden  thirst  at  the 
sight  of  the  fresh  wine,  Birkin  drank  up  his  glass.  A  queer 
little  tension  in  the  room  roused  him.  He  felt  a  sharp  con- 
straint. 

"Did  I  do  it  by  accident,  or  on  purpose?"  he  asked  him- 
self. And  he  decided  that,  according  to  the  vulgar  phrase, 
he  had  done  it  "accidentally  on  purpose."  He  looked  round 
at  the  hired  footman.  And  the  hired  footman  came,  with  a 
silent  step  of  cold  servant-like  disapprobation.  Birkin  de- 
cided that  he  detested  toasts,  and  footmen,  and  assemblies, 
and  mankind  altogether,  in  most  of  its  aspects.  Then  he  rose 
to  make  a  speech.     But  he  was  somehow  disgusted. 

At  length  it  was  over,  the  meal.  Several  men  strolled 
out  into  the  garden.  There  was  a  lawn,  and  flower-beds,  and 
at  the  boundary  an  iron  fence  shutting  off  the  little  field  or 
park.  The  view  was  pleasant;  a  highroad  curving  round  the 
edge  of  a  low  lake,  under  the  trees.      In  the  spring  air,  the 


30  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

water  gleamed  and  the  opposite  woods  were  purplish  with 
new  life.  Charming  Jersey  cattle  came  to  the  fence,  breathing 
hoarsely  from  their  velvet  muzzles  at  the  human  beings, 
expecting  perhaps  a  crust. 

Birkin  leaned  on  the  fence.  A  cow  was  breathing  wet  hot- 
ness  on  his  hand. 

"Pretty  cattle,  very  pretty,"  said  Marshall,  one  of  the 
brothers-in-law.      "They  give  the  best  milk  you  can  have." 

"Yes,"  said  Birkin. 

"Eh,  my  little  beauty,  eh,  my  beauty!"  said  Marshall,  in 
a  queer  high  falsetto  voice,  that  caused  the  other  man  to  have 
convulsions  of  laughter  in  his  stomach. 

"Who  won  the  race,  Lupton?"  he  called  to  the  bride- 
groom, to  hide  the  fact  that  he  was  laughing. 

The  bridegroom  took  his  cigar  from  his  mouth. 

"The  race?"  he  exclaimed.  Then  a  rather  thin  smile 
came  over  his  face.  He  did  not  want  to  say  anything  about 
the  flight  to  the  church  door.  "We  got  there  together.  At 
least  she  touched  first,  but  I  had  my  hand  on  her  shoulder." 

"What's  this?"  asked  Gerald. 

Birkin  told  him  about  the  race  of  the  bride  and  the  bride- 
groom. 

"Hm!"  said  Gerald,  in  disapproval.  "What  made  you 
late  then?" 

"Lupton  would  talk  about  the  immortality  of  the  soul," 
said  Birkin,  "and  then  he  hadn't  got  a  button-hook." 

"Oh,  God!"  cried  Marshall.  "The  immortality  of  the  soul 
on  your  wedding  day!  Hadn't  you  got  anything  better  to 
occupy  your  mind?" 

"What's  wrong  with  it?"  asked  the  bridegroom,  a  clean- 
shaven naval  man,  flushing  sensitively. 

"Sounds  as  if  you  were  going  to  be  executed  instead  of 
married.  The  immortality  of  the  soul!"  repeated  the  brother- 
in-law,  with  most  killing  emphasis. 

But  he  fell  quite  flat. 

"And  what  did  you  decide?"  asked  Gerald,  at  once  prick- 
ing up  his  ears  at  the  thought  of  a  metaphysical  discussion. 

"You  don't  want  a  soul  to-day,  my  boy,"  said  Marshall. 
"It'd  be  in  your  road." 


WOMEN  IS  LOVE  31 

"Christ!  Marshall,  go  and  talk  to  somebody  else,"  cried 
Gerald,  with  sudden  impatience. 

"By  God,  I'm  willing,"  said  Marshall,  in  a  temper.  "Too 
much  bloody  soul  and  talk  altogether — " 

He  withdrew  in  a  dudgeon,  Gerald  staring  after  him  with 
angry  eyes,  that  grew  gradually  calm  and  amiable  as  the 
stoutly  built  form  of  the  other  man  passed  into  the  distance. 

"There's  one  thing,  Lupton,"  said  Gerald,  turning  sud- 
denly to  the  bridegroom.  "Laura  won't  have  brought  such 
a  fool  in  to  the  family  as  Lottie  did." 

"Comfort  yourself  with  that,"  laughed  Birkin. 

"I  take  no  notice  of  them,"  laughed  the  bridegroom. 

"What  about  this  race  then — who  began  it?"  Gerald 
asked. 

"We  were  late.  Laura  was  at  the  top  of  the  church-yard 
steps  when  our  cab  came  up.  She  saw  Lupton  bolting  to- 
wards her.  And  she  fled. — But  why  do  you  look  so  cross? 
Does  it  hurt  your  sense  of  the  family  dignity?" 

"It  does,  rather,"  said  Gerald.  "If  you're  doing  a  thing, 
do  it  properly,  and  if  you're  not  going  to  do  it  properly,  leave 
it  alone." 

"Very  nice  aphorism,"  said  Birkin. 

"Don't  you  agree?"  asked  Gerald. 

"Quite,"  said  Birkin.  "Only  it  bores  me  rather,  when 
you  become  aphoristic." 

"Damn  you,  Rupert,  you  want  all  the  aphorisms  your  own 
way,"  said  Gerald. 

"No,  I  want  them  out  of  the  way,  and  you're  always 
shoving  them  in  it." 

Gerald  smiled  grimly  at  this  humourism.  Then  he  made  a 
little  gesture  of  dismissal,  with  his  eyebrows. 

"You  don't  believe  in  having  any  standard  of  behaviour 
at  all,  do  you?"  he  challenged  Birkin,  censoriously. 

"Standard — no.  I  hate  standards.  But  they're  necessary 
for  the  common  ruck.  Anybody  who  is  anything  can  just 
be  himself  and  do  as  he  likes." 

"But  what  do  you  mean  by  being  himself?"  said  Gerald. 
"Is  that  an  aphorism  or  a  cliche?" 

"I  mean  just  doing  what  you  want  to  do.     I  think  it  was 


32  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

perfect  good  form  in  Laura  to  bolt  from  Lupton  to  the  church 
door.  It  was  almost  a  masterpiece  in  good  form.  It's  the 
hardest  thing  in  the  world  to  act  spontaneously  on  one's  im- 
pulses— and  it's  the  only  really  gentlemanly  thing  to  do — 
provided  you're  fit  to  do  it." 

"You  don't  expect  me  to  take  you  seriously,  do  you?" 
asked  Gerald. 

"Yes,  Gerald,  you're  one  of  the  very  few  people  I  do 
expect  that  of." 

"Then  I'm  afraid  I  can't  come  up  to  your  expectations 
here,  at  any  rate. — You  think  people  should  just  do  as  they 
like." 

"I  think  they  always  do.  But  I  should  like  them  to  like 
the  purely  individual  thing  in  themselves,  which  makes  them 
act  in  singleness.  And  they  only  like  to  do  the  collective 
thing." 

"And  I,"  said  Gerald  grimly,  "shouldn't  like  to  be  in  a 
world  of  people  who  acted  individually  and  spontaneously,  as 
you  call  it. — We  should  have  everybody  cutting  everybody 
else's  throat  in  five  minutes." 

"That  means  you  would  like  to  be  cutting  everybody's 
throat,"  said  Birkin. 

"How  does  that  follow?"  asked  Gerald  crossly. 

"No  man,"  said  Birkin,  "cuts  another  man's  throat  unless 
he  wants  to  cut  it,  and  unless  the  other  man  wants  it  cut. 
This  is  a  complete  truth.  It  takes  two  people  to  make  a 
murder:  a  murderer  and  a  murderee.  And  a  murderee  is  a 
man  who  is  murderable.  And  a  man  who  is  murderable  is 
a  man  who  in  a  profound,  if  hidden  lust,  desires  to  be  mur- 
dered." 

"Sometimes  you  talk  pure  nonsense,"  said  Gerald  to 
Birkin.  "As  a  matter  of  fact,  none  of  us  wants  our  throat 
cut,  and  most  other  people  would  like  to  cut  it  for  us — some 
time  or  other — " 

"It's  a  nasty  view  of  things,  Gerald,"  said  Birkin,  "and 
no  wonder  you  are  afraid  of  yourself  and  your  own  unhap- 
piness." 

"How  am  I  afraid  of  myself?"  said  Gerald;  "and  I  don't 
think  I  am  unhappy." 


WOMEN  m  LOVE  S3 

"You  no  doubt  have  a  lurking  desire  to  have  your  gizzard 
slit,  and  every  man  has  his  knife  up  his  sleeve  for  you,"  Bir- 
kin  said. 

"How  do  you  make  that  out?"  said  Gerald. 

"From  you,"  said  Birkin. 

There  was  a  pause  of  strange  enmity  between  the  two  men, 
that  was  very  near  to  love.  It  was  always  the  same  between 
them;  always  their  talk  brought  them  into  a  deadly  nearness 
of  contact,  a  strange,  perilous  intimacy  which  was  either  hate 
or  love,  or  both.  They  parted  with  apparent  unconcern,  as 
if  their  going  apart  were  a  trivial  occurrence.  And  they 
really  kept  it  to  the  level  of  trivial  occurrence.  Yet  the 
heart  of  each  burned  from  the  other.  They  burned  with 
each  other,  inwardly.  This  they  would  never  admit.  They 
intended  to  keep  their  relationship  a  casual  free  and  easy 
friendship,  they  were  not  going  to  be  so  unmanly  and  unnat- 
ural as  to  allow  any  heart-burning  between  them.  They  had 
not  the  faintest  belief  in  deep  relationship  between  men  and 
men,  and  their  disbelief  prevented  any  development  of  their 
powerful  but  suppressed  friendliness. 


CHAPTER  III 

A  SCHOOL-DAY  was  drawing  to  a  close.  In  the  class- 
room the  last  lesson  was  in  progress,  peaceful  and 
still.  It  was  elementary  botany.  The  desks  were 
littered  with  catkins,  hazel  and  willow,  which  the  children 
had  been  sketching.  But  the  sky  had  come  over  dark,  as 
the  end  of  the  afternoon  approached,  there  was  scarcely  light 
to  draw  any  more.  Ursula  stood  in  front  of  the  class,  leading 
the  children  by  questions  to  understand  the  structure  and  the 
meaning  of  the  catkins. 

A  heavy,  copper-coloured  beam  of  light  came  in  at  the 
west  window,  gilding  the  outlines  of  the  children's  heads  with 
red  gold,  and  falling  on  the  wall  opposite  in  a  rich,  ruddy 
illumination.  Ursula,  however,  was  scarcely  conscious  of  it. 
She  was  busy,  the  end  of  the  day  was  here,  the  work  went  on 
as  a  peaceful  tide  that  is  at  flood,  hushed  to  retire. 

This  day  had  gone  by  like  so  many  more,  in  an  activity 
that  was  like  a  trance.  At  the  end  there  was  a  little  haste, 
to  finish  what  was  in  hand.  She  was  pressing  the  children 
with  questions,  so  that  they  should  know  all  they  were  to 
know,  by  the  time  the  gong  went.  She  stood  in  shadow  in 
front  of  the  class,  with  catkins  in  her  hand,  and  she  leaned 
towards  the  children,  absorbed  in  the  passion  of  instruction. 

She  heard,  but  did  not  notice  the  click  of  the  door.  Sud- 
denly she  started.  She  saw,  in  the  shaft  of  ruddy,  copper- 
coloured  light  near  her,  the  face  of  a  man.  It  was  gleaming 
like  fire,  watching  her,  waiting  for  her  to  be  aware.  It  startled 
her  terribly.  She  thought  she  was  going  to  faint.  All  her 
suppressed,  subconscious  fear  sprang  into  being,  with  anguish. 

"Did  I  startle  you?"  said  Birkin,  shaking  hands  with  her. 
"I  thought  you  had  heard  me  come  in." 

"No,"  she  faltered,  scarcely  able  to  speak.  He  laughed, 
saying  he  was  sorry.      She  wondered  why  it  amused  him. 

"It  is  so  dark,"  he  said.      "Shall  we  have  the  light?" 

And    moving   aside,    he   switched  on    the   strong   electric 

34 


WOMEN  EN  LOVE  35 

lights.  The  class-room  was  distinct  and  hard,  a  strange 
place  after  the  soft  dim  magic  that  filled  it  before  he  came. 
Birkin  turned  curiously  to  look  at  Ursula.  Her  eyes  were 
round  and  wondering,  bewildered,  her  mouth  quivered  slightly. 
She  looked  like  one  who  is  suddenly  wakened.  There  was  a 
living,  tender  beauty,  like  a  tender  light  of  dawn  shining  from 
her  face.  He  looked  at  her  with  a  new  pleasure,  feeling  gay 
in  his  heart,  irresponsible. 

"You  are  doing  catkins?"  he  asked,  picking  up  a  piece  of 
hazel  from  a  scholar's  desk  in  front  of  him.  "Are  they  as 
far  out  as  this?     I  hadn't  noticed  them  this  year." 

He  looked  absorbedly  at  the  tassel  of  hazel  in  his  hand. 

"The  red  ones,  too!"  he  said,  looking  at  the  flickers  of 
crimson  that  came  from  the  female  bud. 

Then  he  went  in  among  the  desks,  to  see  the  scholar's 
books.  Ursula  watched  his  intent  progress.  There  was  a 
stillness  in  his  motion  that  hushed  the  activities  of  her  heart. 
She  seemed  to  be  standing  aside  in  arrested  silence,  watching 
him  move  in  another,  concentrated  world.  His  presence  was 
so  quiet,  almost  like  a  vacancy  in  the  corporate  air. 

Suddenly  he  lifted  his  face  to  her,  and  her  heart  quickened 
at  the  flicker  of  his  voice. 

"Give  them  some  crayons,  won't  you?"  he  said,  "so  that 
they  can  make  the  gynaecious  flowers  red,  and  the  androgy- 
nous yellow.  I'd  chalk  them  in  plain,  chalk  in  nothing  else, 
merely  the  red  and  the  yellow.  Outline  scarcely  matters  in 
this  case.     There  is  just  the  one  fact  to  emphasize." 

"I  haven't  any  crayons,"  said  Ursula. 

"There  will  be  some  somewhere — red  and  yellow,  that's  all 
you  want." 

Ursula  sent  out  a  boy  on  a  quest. 

"It  will  make  the  books  untidy,"  she  said  to  Birkin, 
flushing  deeply. 

"Not  very,"  he  said.  "You  must  mark  in  these  things 
obviously.  It's  the  fact  you  want  to  emphasize,  not  the 
subjective  impression  to  record.  What's  the  fact? — red, 
little  spiky  .stigmas  of  the  female  flower,  dangling  yellow 
male  catkin,  yellow  pollen  flying  from  one  to  the  other.  Make 
a  pictorial  record  of  the  fact,  as  a  child  does  when  drawing  a 


36  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

face — two  eyes,  one  nose,  mouth  with  teeth — so — ."  And  he 
drew  a  figure  on  the  blackboard. 

At  that  moment  another  vision  was  seen  through  the  glass 
panels  of  the  door.  It  was  Hermione  Roddice.  Birkin  went 
and  opened  to  her. 

"I  saw  your  car,"  she  said  to  him.  "Do  you  mind  my 
coming  to  find  you?  I  wanted  to  see  you  when  you  were 
on  duty." 

She  looked  at  him  for  a  long  time,  intimate  and  playful, 
then  she  gave  a  short  little  laugh.  And  then  only  she  turned 
to  Ursula,  who,  with  all  the  class,  had  been  watching  the 
little  scene  between  the  lovers. 

"How  do  you  do,  Miss  Brangwen?"  sang  Hermione,  in 
her  low,  odd,  singing  fashion,  that  sounded  almost  as  if  she 
were  poking  fun.      "Do  you  mind  my  coming  in?" 

Her  grey,  almost  sardonic  eyes  rested  all  the  while  on 
Ursula,  as  if  summing  her  up. 

"Oh  no,"  said  Ursula. 

"Are  you  sure?"  repeated  Hermione,  with  complete  sang 
froid,  and  an  odd,  half-bullying  effrontery. 

"Oh  no,  I  like  it  awfully,"  laughed  Ursula,  a  little  bit 
excited  and  bewildered,  because  Hermione  seemed  to  be  com- 
pelling her,  coming  very  close  to  her,  as  if  intimate  with  her; 
and  yet,  how  could  she  be  intimate? 

This  was  the  answer  Hermione  wanted.  She  turned  satis- 
fied to  Birkin. 

"What  are  you  doing?"  she  sang,  in  her  casual,  inquisitive 
fashion. 

"Catkins,"  he  replied. 

"Really!"  she  said.  "And  what  do  you  learn  about  them?" 
She  spoke  all  the  while  in  a  mocking,  half-teasing  fashion,  as 
if  making  game  of  the  whole  business.  She  picked  up  a 
piece  of  the  catkin,  piqued  by  Birkin's  attention  to  it. 

She  was  a  strange  figure  in  the  class-room,  wearing  a 
large,  old  cloak  of  greenish  cloth,  on  which  was  a  raised  pat- 
tern of  dull  gold.  The  high  collar,  and  the  inside  of  the  cloak, 
was  lined  with  dark  fur.  Beneath  she  had  a  dress  of  fine 
lavender-coloured  cloth,  trimmed  with  fur,  and  her  hat  was 
close-fitting,    made  of   fur  and  of  the  dull,   green-and-gold 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  37 

figured  stuff.  She  was  tall  and  strange,  she  looked  as  if  she 
had  come  out  of  some  new,  bizarre  picture. 

"Do  you  know  the  little  red  ovary  flowers,  that  produce 
the  nuts?  Have  you  ever  noticed  them?"  he  asked  her. 
And  he  came  close  and  pointed  them  out  to  her,  on  the  sprig 
she  held. 

"No,"  she  replied.      "What  are  they?" 

"Those  are  the  little  seed-producing  flowers,  and  the  long 
catkins,  they  only  produce  pollen,  to  fertilize  them." 

"Do  they,  do  they?"  repeated  Hermione,  looking  closely. 

"From  those  little  red  bits,  the  nuts  come;  if  they  receive 
pollen  from  the  long  danglers." 

"Little  red  flames,  little  red  flames,"  murmured  Her- 
mione to  herself.  And  she  remained  for  some  moments 
looking  only  at  the  small  buds  out  of  which  the  red  flickers 
of  the  stigma  issued. 

"Aren't  they  beautiful?  I  think  they're  so  beautiful," 
she  said,  moving  close  to  Birkin,  and  pointing  to  the  red 
filaments  with  her  long,  white  finger. 

"Had  you  never  noticed  them  before?"  he  asked. 

"No,  never  before,"  she  replied. 

"And  now  you  will  always  see  them,"  he  said. 

"Now  I  shall  always  see  them,"  she  repeated.  "Thank 
you  so  much  for  showing  me.  I  think  they're  so  beautiful — 
little  red  flames — " 

Her  absorption  was  strange,  almost  rhapsodic.  Both 
Birkin  and  Ursula  were  suspended.  The  little  red  pistillate 
flowers  had  some  strange,  almost  mystic-passionate  attraction 
for  her. 

The  lesson  was  finished,  the  books  were  put  away,  at 
last  the  class  was  dismissed.  And  still  Hermione  sat  at  the 
table,  with  her  chin  in  her  hand,  her  elbow  on  the  table,  her 
long  white  face  pushed  up,  not  attending  to  anything.  Bir- 
kin had  gone  to  the  window,  and  was  looking  from  the  bril- 
liantly lighted  room  on  to  the  grey,  colourless  outside,  where 
rain  was  noiselessly  falling.  Ursula  put  away  her  things  in 
the  cupboard. 

At  length  Hermione  rose  and  came  near  to  her. 

"Your  sister  has  come  home?"  she  said. 


38  WOMEN  IN   LOVE 

"Yes,"  said  Ursula, 

"And  does  she  like  being  back  in  Beldover?" 

"No,"  said  Ursula. 

"No,  I  wonder  she  can  bear  it.  It  takes  all  my  strength, 
to  bear  the  ugliness  of  this  district,  when  I  stay  here. — Won't 
you  come  and  see  me?  Won't  you  come  with  your  sister  to 
stay  at  Breadalby  for  a  few  days? — Do — " 

"Thank  you  very  much,"  said  Ursula. 

"Then  I  will  write  to  you,"  said  Hermione.  "You  think 
your  sister  will  come?  I  should  be  so  glad.  I  think  she  is 
wonderful.  I  think  some  of  her  work  is  really  wonderful. 
I  have  two  water-wagtails,  carved  in  wood,  and  painted — 
perhaps  you  have  seen  it?" 

"No,"  said  Ursula. 

"I  think  it  is  perfectly  wonderful — like  a  flash  of  in- 
stinct— " 

"Her  little  carvings  are  strange,"  said  Ursula. 

"Perfectly  beautiful— full  of  primitive  passion — " 

"Isn't  it  queer  that  she  always  likes  little  things?  She 
must  always  work  small  things,  that  one  can  put  between 
one's  hands,  birds  and  tiny  animals.  She  likes  to  look  through 
the  wrong  end  of  the  opera  glasses,  and  see  the  world  that 
way — why  is  it,  do  you  think?" 

Hermione  looked  down  at  Ursula  with  that  long,  detached 
scrutinizing  gaze  that  excited  the  younger  woman. 

"Yes,"  said  Hermione  at  length.  "It  is  curious.  The 
little  things  seem  to  be  more  subtle  to  her — " 

"But  they  aren't,  are  they?  A  mouse  isn't  any  more 
subtle  than  a  lion,  is  it?" 

Again  Hermione  looked  down  at  Ursula  with  that  long 
scrutiny,  as  if  she  were  following  some  train  of  thought  of 
her  own,  and  barely  attending  to  the  other's  speech. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  replied. 

"Rupert,  Rupert,"  she  sang  mildly,  calling  him  to  her. 
He  approached  in  silence. 

"Are  little  things  more  subtle  than  big  things?"  she  asked, 
with  the  odd  grunt  of  laughter  in  her  voice,  as  if  she  were 
making  game  of  him  in  the  question. 

"Dunno,"  he  said, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  3d 

"I  hate  subtleties,"  said  Ursula. 

Hermione  looked  at  her  slowly. 

"Do  you?"  she  said. 

"I  always  think  they  are  a  sign  of  weakness,"  said  Ursula, 
up  in  arms,  as  if  her  prestige  were  threatened. 

Hermione  took  no  notice.  Suddenly  her  face  puckered, 
her  brow  was  knit  with  thought,  she  seemed  twisted  in  trou- 
blesome effort  for  utterance. 

"Do  you  really  think,  Rupert,"  she  asked,  as  if  Ursula 
were  not  present,  "do  you  really  think  it  is  worth  while? 
Do  you  really  think  the  children  are  better  for  being  roused 
to  consciousness?" 

A  dark  flash  went  over  his  face,  a  silent  fury.  He  was 
hollow-cheeked  and  pale,  almost  unearthly.  And  the  woman, 
with  her  serious,  conscience-harrowing  question  tortured  him 
on  the  quick. 

"They  are  not  roused  to  consciousness,"  he  said.  "Con- 
sciousness comes  to  them,  willy-nilly." 

"But  do  you  think  they  are  better  for  having  it  quickened, 
stimulated?  Isn't  it  better  that  they  should  remain  uncon- 
scious of  the  hazel,  isn't  it  better  that  they  should  see  as  a 
whole,  without  all  this  pulling  to  pieces,  all  this  knowledge?" 

"Would  you  rather,  for  yourself,  know  or  not  know,  that 
the  little  red  flowers  are  there,  putting  out  for  the  pollen?" 
he  asked  harshly.     His  voice  was  brutal,  scornful,  cruel. 

Hermione  remained  with  her  face  lifted  up,  abstracted. 
He  hung  silent  in  irritation. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  replied,  balancing  mildly.  "I  don't 
know." 

"But  knowing  is  everything  to  you,  it  is  all  your  life," 
he  broke  out.     She  slowly  looked  at  him. 

"Is  it?"  she  said. 

'To  know,  that  is  your  all,  that  is  your  life — you  have 
only  this,  this  knowledge,"  he  cried.  "There  is  only  one 
tree,  there  is  only  one  fruit,  in  your  mouth." 

Again  she  was  some  time  silent. 

Tl  there?"  she  said  at  last,  with  the  same  untouched  calm. 
And  then  in  a  tone  of  whimsical  inquisitiveness:  "What 
fruit,  Rupert?" 


40  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"The  eternal  apple,"  he  replied  in  exasperation,  hating 
his  own  metaphors. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  There  was  a  look  of  exhaustion  about 
her.  For  some  moments  there  was  silence.  Then,  pulling 
herself  together  with  a  convulsed  movement,  Hermione  re- 
sumed, in  a  sing-song,  casual  voice: 

"But  leaving  me  apart,  Rupert;  do  you  think  the  children 
are  better,  richer,  happier,  for  all  this  knowledge;  do  you 
really  think  they  are?  Or  is  it  better  to  leave  them  un- 
touched, spontaneous.  Hadn't  they  better  be  animals,  sim- 
ple animals,  crude,  violent,  anything,  rather  than  this  self- 
consciousness,  this  incapacity  to  be  spontaneous." 

They  thought  she  had  finished.  But  with  a  queer  rum- 
bling in  her  throat  she  resumed.  "Hadn't  they  better  be 
anything  than  grow  up  crippled,  crippled  in  their  souls, 
crippled  in  their  feelings — so  thrown  back — so  turned  back 
on  themselves — incapable — "  Hermione  clenched  her  fist 
like  one  in  a  trance — "of  any  spontaneous  action,  always 
deliberate,  always  burdened  with  choice,  never  carried  away." 

Again  they  thought  she  had  finished.  But  just  as  he  was 
going  to  reply,  she  resumed  her  queer  rhapsody — "never  car- 
ried away,  out  of  themselves,  always  conscious,  always  self- 
conscious,  always  aware  of  themselves. — Isn't  anything  better 
than  this?  Better  be  animals,  mere  animals  with  no  mind  at 
all,  than  this,  this  nothingness." 

"But  do  you  think  it  is  knowledge  that  makes  us  unliving 
and  self-conscious?"  he  asked  irritably. 

She  opened  her  eyes  and  looked  at  him  slowly. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  She  paused,  watching  him  all  the  while, 
her  eyes  vague.  Then  she  wiped  her  fingers  across  her  brow, 
with  a  vague  weariness.  It  irritated  him  bitterly.  "It  is 
the  mind,"  she  said  "and  that  is  death."  She  raised  her  eyes 
slowly  to  him:  "Isn't  the  mind,"  she  said,  with  the  convulsed 
movement  of  her  body,  "isn't  it  our  death?  Doesn't  it  de- 
stroy all  our  spontaneity,  all  our  instincts?  Are  not  the 
young  people  growing  up  to-day,  really  dead  before  they 
have  a  chance  to  live?" 

"Not  because  they  have  too  much  mind,  but  too  little," 
he  said  brutally. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  41 

"Are  you  sure?"  she  cried.  "It  seems  to  me  the  reverse. 
They  are  over-conscious,  burdened  to  death  with  conscious- 
ness." 

"Imprisoned  within  a  limited,  false  set  of  concepts,"  he 
cried. 

But  she  took  no  notice  of  this,  only  went  on  with  her  own 
rhapsodic  interrogation. 

"When  we  have  knowledge,  don't  we  lose  everything  but 
knowledge?"  she  asked  pathetically.  "If  I  know  about  the 
flower,  don't  I  lose  the  flower  and  have  only  the  knowledge?" 
Aren't  we  exchanging  the  substance  for  the  shadow,  aren't  we 
forfeiting  life  for  this  dead  quantity  of  knowledge?  And 
what  does  it  mean  to  me,  after  all?  What  does  all  this  know- 
ing mean  to  me?     It  means  nothing." 

"You  are  merely  making  words,"  he  said.  "Knowledge 
means  everything  to  you.  Even  your  animalism,  you  want 
it  in  your  head.  You  don't  want  to  be  an  animal,  you  want 
to  observe  your  own  animal  functions,  to  get  a  mental  thrill 
out  of  them.  It  is  all  purely  secondary — and  more  decadent 
than  the  most  hide-bound  intellectualism.  What  is  it  but 
the  worst  and  last  form  of  intellectualism,  this  love  of  yours 
for  passion  and  the  animal  instincts?  Passion  and  the  in- 
stincts— you  want  them  hard  enough,  but  through  your 
head,  in  your  consciousness.  It  all  takes  place  in  your  head, 
under  that  skull  of  yours. — Only  you  won't  be  conscious  of 
what  actually  is:  you  want  the  lie  that  will  match  the  rest 
of  your  furniture." 

Hermione  set  hard  and  poisonous  against  this  attack. 
Ursula  stood  covered  with  wonder  and  shame.  It  frightened 
her,  to  see  how  they  hated  each  other. 

"It's  all  that  Lady  of  Shalott  business,"  he  said,  in  his 
strong,  abstract  voice.  He  seemed  to  be  charging  her  before 
the  unseeing  air.  "You've  got  that  mirror,  your  own  fixed 
will,  your  immortal  understanding,  your  own  tight  conscious 
world,  and  there  is  nothing  beyond  it.  There,  in  the  mirror, 
you  must  have  everything.  But  now  you  have  come  to  all 
your  conclusions,  you  want  to  go  back  and  be  like  a  savage, 
without  knowledge.  You  want  a  life  of  pure  sensation  and 
'passion'." 


42  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

He  quoted  the  last  word  satirically  against  her.  She  sat 
convulsed  with  fury  and  violation,  speechless,  like  a  stricken 
pythoness  of  the  Greek  oracle. 

"But  your  passion  is  a  lie,"  he  went  on  violently.  "It 
isn't  passion  at  all,  it  is  your  will.  It's  your  bullying  will, 
You  want  to  clutch  things  and  have  them  in  your  power. 
You  want  to  have  things  in  your  power.  And  why?  Be- 
cause you  haven't  got  any  real  body,  any  dark  sensual  body 
of  life.  You  have  no  sensuality.  You  have  only  your  will 
and  your  conceit  of  consciousness,  and  your  lust  for  power, 
to  know." 

He  looked  at  her  in  mingled  hate  and  contempt,  also  in 
pain  because  she  suffered,  and  in  shame  because  he  knew  he 
tortured  her.  He  had  an  impulse  to  kneel  and  plead  for 
forgiveness.  But  a  bitterer  red  anger  burned  up  to  fury  in 
him.  He  became  unconscious  of  her,  he  was  only  a  passionate 
voice  speaking. 

"Spontaneous!"  he  cried.  "You  and  spontaneity!  You, 
the  most  deliberate  thing  that  ever  walked  or  crawled !  You'd 
be  verily  deliberately  spontaneous — that's  you. — Because  you 
want  to  have  everything  in  your  own  volition,  your  deliberate 
voluntary  consciousness. — You  want  it  all  in  that  loathsome 
little  skull  of  yours,  that  ought  to  be  cracked  like  a  nut.  For 
you'll  be  the  same  till  it  is  cracked,  like  an  insect  in  its  skin. 
If  one  cracked  your  skull  perhaps  one  might  get  a  spontaneous, 
passionate  woman  out  of  you,  with  real  sensuality.  As  it  is, 
what  you  want  is  pornography — looking  at  yourself  in  mirrors, 
watching  your  naked  animal  actions  in  mirrors,  so  that  you 
can  have  it  all  in  your  consciousness,  make  it  all  mental." 

There  was  a  sense  of  violation  in  the  air,  as  if  too  much 
was  said,  the  unforgivable.  Yet  Ursula  was  concerned  now 
only  with  solving  her  own  problems,  in  the  light  of  his  words. 
She  was  pale  and  abstracted. 

"But  do  you  really  want  sensuality?"  she  asked,  puzzled. 

Birkin  looked  at  her,  and  became  intent  in  his  explanation. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "that  and  nothing  else,  at  this  point.  It 
is  a  fulfilment — the  great  dark  knowledge  you  can't  have  in 
your  head — the  dark  unvoluntary  being.  It  is  death  to  one 
self — but  it  is  the  coming  into  being  of  another." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  43 

"But  how?  How  can  you  have  knowledge  not  in  your 
head?"  she  asked,  quite  unable  to  interpret  his  phrases. 

"In  the  blood,"  he  answered;  "when  the  mind  and  the 
known  world  is  drowned  in  darkness — everything  must  go — 
there  must  be  the  deluge.  Then  you  find  yourself  a  palpable 
body  of  darkness,  a  demon — " 

"But  why  should  I  be  a  demon?"  she  asked. 

"  'Woman  wailing  for  her  demon  lover' — "  he  quoted. 
"Why,  I  don't  know." 

Hermione  roused  herself  as  from  a  death — annihilation. 

"He  is  such  a  dreadful  satanist,  isn't  he?"  she  drawled  to 
Ursula,  in  a  queer  resonant  voice,  that  ended  in  a  shrill  little 
laugh  of  pure  ridicule.  The  two  women  were  jeering  at  him, 
jeering  him  into  nothingness.  The  laugh  of  the  sneering, 
shrill,  triumphant  female  sounded  from  Hermione,  jeering  him 
as  if  he  were  a  neuter. 

"No,"  he  said.  "You  are  the  real  devil  who  won't  let 
life  exist." 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  long,  slow  look,  malevolent, 
supercilious. 

"You  know  all  about  it,  don't  you?"  she  said,  with  slow, 
cold,  cunning  mockery. 

"Enough,"  he  replied,  his  face  fixing  fine  and  clear,  like 
steel.  A  horrible  despair,  and  at  the  same  time  a  sense  of 
release,  liberation,  came  over  Hermione.  She  turned  with  a 
pleasant  intimacy  to  Ursula. 

"You  are  sure  you  will  come  to  Breadalby?"  she  said, 
urging. 

"Yes,  I  should  like  to  very  much,"  replied  Ursula. 

Ibrmione  looked  down  at  her,  gratified,  reflecting,  and 
strangely  absent,  as  if  possessed,  as  if  not  quite  there. 

"I'm  so  glad,"  she  said,  pulling  herself  together.  "Some 
time  in  about  a  fortnight.  Yes? — I  will  write  to  you  here, 
at  the  school,  shall  I? — Yes. — And  you'll  be  sure  to  come? — 
Yes. — I  shall  be  so  glad.     Good-bye. — Goo-ood-bye. — " 

Hermione  held  out  her  hand  and  looked  into  the  eyes  of 
the  other  woman.  She  knew  Ursula  as  an  immediate  rival, 
and  the  knowledge  strangely  exhilarated  her.  Also  she  was 
taking  leave.      It  always  gave  her  a  sense  of  strength,  advan- 


44  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

tage,  to  be  departing  and  leaving  the  other  behind.  More- 
over she  was  taking  the  man  with  her,  if  only  in  hate. 

Birkin  stood  aside,  fixed  and  unreal.  But  now,  when  it 
was  his  turn  to  bid  good-bye,  he  began  to  speak  again. 

"There's  the  whole  difference  in  the  world,"  he  said,  "be- 
tween the  actual  sensual  being,  and  the  vicious  mental-delib- 
erate profligacy  our  lot  goes  in  for.  In  our  night  time,  there's 
always  the  electricity  switched  on,  we  watch  ourselves,  we 
get  it  all  in  the  head,  really.  You've  got  to  lapse  out  before 
you  can  know  what  sensual  reality  is,  lapse  into  unknowing- 
ness,  and  give  up  your  volition.  You've  got  to  do  it.  You've 
got  to  learn  not-to-be,  before  you  can  come  into  being. 

"But  we  have  got  such  a  conceit  of  ourselves — that's 
where  it  is.  We  are  so  conceited,  and  so  unproud.  We've 
got  no  pride,  we're  all  conceit,  so  conceited  in  our  own  papier- 
mache"  realised  selves.  We'd  rather  die  than  give  up  our 
little  self-righteous  self-opiniated  self-will." 

There  was  silence  in  the  room.  Both  women  were  hostile 
and  resentful.  He  sounded  as  if  he  were  addressing  a  meet- 
ing. Hermione  merely  paid  no  attention,  stood  with  her 
shoulders  tight  in  a  shrug  of  dislike. 

Ursula  was  watching  him  as  if  furtively,  not  really  aware 
of  what  she  was  seeing.  There  was  a  great  physical  attrac- 
tiveness in  him — a  curious  hidden  richness,  that  came  through 
his  thinness  and  his  pallor  like  another  voice,  conveying  another 
knowledge  of  him.  It  was  in  the  curves  of  his  brows  and  his 
chin,  rich,  fine,  exquisite  curves,  the  powerful  beauty  of  life 
itself,  something  like  laughter,  invisible  and  satisfying.  Also 
the  magic  of  his  thighs  had  fascinated  her:  the  inner  slopes 
of  his  thighs.  She  could  not  say  what  it  was.  But  there 
was  a  sense  of  richness  and  of  strong,  free  liberty. 

"But  we  are  sensual  enough,  without  making  ourselves  so, 
aren't  we?"  she  asked,  turning  to  him  with  a  certain  golden 
laughter  flickering  under  her  greenish  eyes,  like  a  challenge. 
And  immediately  the  queer,  careless,  terribly  attractive  smile 
came  over  his  eyes  and  brows,  though  his  mouth  did  not 
relax. 

"No,"  he  said,  "we  aren't.      We're  too  full  of  ourselves." 

"Surely  it  isn't  a  matter  of  conceit,"  she  cried. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  45 

"That  and  nothing  else." 

She  was  frankly  puzzled. 

"Don't  you  think  that  people  are  most  conceited  of  all 
about  their  sensual  powers?"  she  asked. 

"That's  why  they  aren't  sensual — only  sensuous — which  is 
another  matter.  They're  always  aware  of  themselves — and 
they're  so  conceited,  that  rather  than  release  themselves,  and 
live  in  another  world,  from  another  centre,  they'd — ." 

"You  want  your  tea,  don't  you?"  said  Hermione,  turning 
to  Ursula  with  a  gracious  kindliness.  "You've  worked  all 
day — " 

Birkin  stopped  short.  A  spasm  of  anger  and  chagrin  went 
over  Ursula.  His  face  set.  And  he  bade  good-bye,  as  if  he 
had  ceased  to  notice  her. 

They  were  gone.  Ursula  stood  looking  at  the  door  for 
some  moments.  Then  she  put  out  the  lights.  And  having 
done  so,  she  sat  down  again  in  her  chair,  absorbed  and  lost. 
And  then  she  began  to  cry,  bitterly,  bitterly  weeping;  but 
whether  for  misery  or  joy,  she  never  knew. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  week  passed  away.  On  the  Saturday  it  rained,  a 
soft  drizzling  rain,  that  held  off  at  times.  In  one  of 
the  intervals  Gudrun  and  Ursula  set  out  for  a  walk, 
going  towards  Willey  Water.  The  atmosphere  was  grey  and 
translucent,  the  birds  sang  sharply  on  the  young  twigs,  the 
earth  would  be  quickening  and  hastening  in  growth.  The 
two  girls  walked  swiftly,  gladly,  because  of  the  soft,  subtle 
rush  of  morning  that  filled  the  wet  haze.  By  the  road  the 
blackthorn  was  in  blossom,  white  and  wet,  its  tiny  amber 
grains  burning  faintly  in  the  white  smoke  of  blossom.  Pur- 
ple twigs  were  darkly  luminous  in  the  grey  air,  high  hedges 
glowed  like  living  shadows,  hovering  nearer,  coming  into 
creation.      The  morning  was  full  of  a  new  creation. 

When  the  sisters  came  to  Willey  Water,  the  lake  lay  all 
grey  and  visionary,  stretching  into  the  moist,  translucent 
vista  of  trees  and  meadow.  Fine  electric  activity  in  sound 
came  from  the  dumbles  below  the  road,  the  birds  piping  one 
against  the  other,  and  water  mysteriously  plashing,  issuing 
from  the  lake. 

The  two  girls  drifted  swiftly  along.  In  front  of  them,  at 
the  corner  of  the  lake,  near  the  road,  was  a  mossy  boat-house 
under  a  walnut  tree,  and  a  little  landing-stage  where  a  boat 
was  moored,  wavering  like  a  shadow  on  the  still  grey  water, 
below  the  green,  decayed  poles.  All  was  shadowy  with  com- 
ing summer. 

Suddenly,  from  the  boat-house,  a  white  figure  ran  out, 
frightening  in  its  swift  sharp  transit,  across  the  old  landing- 
stage.  It  launched  in  a  white  arc  through  the  air,  there  was 
a  bursting  of  the  water,  and  among  the  smooth  ripples  a 
swimmer  was  making  out  to  space,  in  a  centre  of  faintly 
heaving  motion.  The  whole  otherworld,  wet  and  remote,  he 
had  to  himself.  He  could  move  into  the  pure  translucency 
of  the  grey,  uncreated  water. 

Gudrun  stood  by  the  stone  wall,  watching. 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  47 

"How  I  envy  him,"  she  said,  in  low,  desirous  tones. 
"Ugh!"  shivered  Ursula.     "So  cold!" 

"Yes,  but  how  good,  how  really  fine,  to  swim  out  there!" 
The  sisters  stood  watching  the  swimmer  move  further  into 
the  grey,  moist,  full  space  of  the  water,  pulsing  with  his  own 
small,  invading  motion,  and  arched  over  with  mist  and  dim 
woods. 

"Don't  you  wish  it  were  you?"  asked  Gudrun,  looking  at 
Ursula. 

"I  do,"  said  Ursula.     "But  I'm  not  sure — it's  so  wet." 

"No,"  said  Gudrun,  reluctantly.  She  stood  watching  the 
motion  on  the  bosom  of  the  water,  as  if  fascinated.  He, 
having  swum  a  certain  distance,  turned  round  and  was  swim- 
ming on  his  back,  looking  along  the  water  at  the  two  girls 
by  the  wall.  In  the  faint  wash  of  motion,  they  could  see  his 
ruddy  face,  and  could  feel  him  watching  them. 

"It  is  Gerald  Crich,"  said  Ursula. 

"I  know,"  replied  Gudrun. 

And  she  stood  motionless  gazing  over  the  water  at  the 
face  which  washed  up  and  down  on  the  flood,  as  he  swam 
steadily.  From  his  separate  element  he  saw  them  and  he 
exulted  to  himself  because  of  his  own  advantage,  his  posses- 
sion of  a  world  to  himself.  He  was  immune  and  perfect. 
He  loved  his  own  vigorous,  thrusting  motion,  and  the  violent 
impulse  of  the  very  cold  water  against  his  limbs,  buoying  him 
up.  He  could  see  the  girls  watching  him  away  off,  outside, 
and  that  pleased  him.  He  lifted  his  arm  from  the  water,  in 
a  sign  to  them. 

"He  is  waving,"  said  Ursula. 

"Yes,"  replied  Gudrun.  They  watched  him.  He  waved 
again,  with  a  strange  movement  of  recognition  across  the  dif- 
ference. 

"Like  a  Nibelung,"  laughed  Ursula.  Gudrun  said  noth- 
ing, only  stood  still  looking  over  the  water. 

Gerald  suddenly  turned,  and  was  swimming  away  swiftly, 
with  a  side  stroke.  He  was  alone  now,  alone  and  immune  in 
the  middle  of  the  waters,  which  he  had  all  to  himself.  He 
exulted  in  his  isolation  in  the  new  element,  unquestioned  and 
unconditioned.      He  was  happy,  thrusting  with  his  legs  and 


48  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

all  his  body,  without  bond  or  connection  anywhere,  just  him- 
self of  the  watery  world. 

Gudrun  envied  him  almost  painfully.  Even  this  momen- 
tary possession  of  pure  isolation  and  fluidity  seemed  to  her 
so  terribly  desirable  that  she  felt  herself  as  if  damned,  out 
there  on  the  high-road. 

"God,  what  it  is  to  be  a  man!"  she  cried. 

"What?"  exclaimed  Ursula  in  surprise. 

"The  freedom,  the  liberty,  the  mobility!"  cried  Gudrun, 
strangely  flushed  and  brilliant.  "You're  a  man,  you  want  to 
do  a  thing,  you  do  it.  You  haven't  the  thousand  obstacles  a 
woman  has  in  front  of  her." 

Ursula  wondered  what  was  in  Gudrun's  mind,  to  occasion 
this  outburst.      She  could  not  understand. 

"What  do  you  want  to  do?"  she  asked. 

"Nothing,"  cried  Gudrun,  in  swift  refutation.  "But  sup- 
posing I  did.  Supposing  I  want  to  swim  up  that  water.  It 
is  impossible,  it  is  one  of  the  impossibilities  of  life,  for  me  to 
take  my  clothes  off  now  and  jump  in.  But  isn't  it  ridiculous, 
doesn't  it  simply  prevent  our  living?" 

She  was  so  hot,  so  flushed,  so  furious,  that  Ursula  was 
puzzled. 

The  two  sisters  went  on,  up  the  road.  They  were  passing 
between  the  trees  just  below  Shortlands.  They  looked  up  at 
the  long,  low  house,  dim  and  glamorous  in  the  wet  morning, 
its  cedar  trees  slanting  before  the  windows.  Gudrun  seemed 
to  be  studying  it  closely. 

"Don't  you  think  it's  attractive,  Ursula?"  asked  Gudrun. 

"Very,"  said  Ursula.      "Very  peaceful  and  charming." 

"It  has  form,  too — it  has  a  period." 

"What  period?" 

"Oh,  eighteenth  century,  for  certain;  Dorothy  Wordsworth 
and  Jane  Austen,  don't  you  think?" 

Ursula  laughed. 

"Don't  you  think  so?"  repeated  Gudrun. 

"Perhaps.  But  I  don't  think  the  Criches  fit  the  period. 
I  know  Gerald  is  putting  in  a  private  electric  plant,  for  light- 
ing the  house,  and  is  making  all  kinds  of  latest  improvements." 

Gudrun  shrugged  her  shoulders  swiftly. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  49 

"Of  course,"  she  said,  "that's  quite  inevitable." 

"Quite,"  laughed  Ursula.  "He  is  several  generations  of 
youngness  at  one  go.  They  hate  him  for  it.  He  takes  them 
all  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck,  and  fairly  flings  them  along. 
He'll  have  to  die  soon,  when  he's  made  every  possible  im- 
provement, and  there  will  be  nothing  more  to  improve. — 
He's  got  go,  anyhow." 

"Certainly,  he's  got  go,"  said  Gudrun.  "In  fact,  I've  never 
seen  a  man  that  showed  signs  of  so  much.  The  unfortunate 
thing  is,  where  does  his  go  go  to,  what  becomes  of  it?" 

"Oh  I  know,"  said  Ursula.  "It  goes  in  applying  the  latest 
appliances!" 

"Exactly,"  said  Gudrun. 

"You  know  he  shot  his  brother?"  said  Ursula. 

"Shot  his  brother?"  cried  Gudrun,  frowning  as  if  in  dis- 
approbation. 

"Didn't  you  know?  Oh  yes! — I  thought  you  knew.  He 
and  his  brother  were  playing  together  with  a  gun.  He  told 
his  brother  to  look  down  the  gun,  and  it  was  loaded,  and  blew 
the  top  of  his  head  off. — Isn't  it  a  horrible  story?" 

"How  fearful!"  cried  Gudrun.     "But  it  is  long  ago?" 

"Oh  yes,  they  were  quite  boys,"  said  Ursula.  "I  think 
it  is  one  of  the  most  horrible  stories  I  know." 

"And  he,  of  course,  did  not  know  that  the  gun  was  loaded?" 

"Yes.  You  see,  it  was  an  old  thing  that  had  been  lying 
in  the  stable  for  years.  Nobody  dreamed  it  would  ever  go 
off,  and  of  course,  no  one  imagined  it  was  loaded.  But  isn't 
it  dreadful,  that  it  should  happen?" 

"Frightful!"  cried  Gudrun.  "And  isn't  it  horrible  too,  to 
think  of  such  a  thing  happening  to  one,  when  one  was  a  child, 
and  having  to  carry  the  responsibility  of  it  all  through  one's 
life.  Imagine  it,  two  boys  playing  together — then  this  comes 
upon  them,  for  no  reason  whatever — out  of  the  air.  Ursula, 
it's  very  frightening!  Oh,  it's  one  of  the  things  I  can't  bear. 
Murder,  that  is  thinkable,  because  there's  will  behind  it. 
But  a  thing  like  that  to  happen  to  one — " 

'Terhaps  there  was  an  unconscious  will  behind  it,"  said 
Ursula.  "This  playing  at  killing  has  some  primitive  desire 
for  killing  in  it,  don't  you  think?" 


50  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Desire?"  said  Gudrun,  coldly,  stiffening  a  little.  "I 
can't  see  that  they  were  even  playing  at  killing.  I  suppose 
one  boy  said  to  the  other,  'You  look  down  the  barrel  while 
I  pull  the  trigger,  and  see  what  happens?'  It  seems  to  me 
the  purest  form  of  accident." 

"No,"  said  Ursula.  "I  couldn't  pull  the  trigger  of  the 
emptiest  gun  in  the  world,  not  if  some  one  were  looking  down 
the  barrel.     One  instinctively  doesn't  do  it — one  can't." 

Gudrun  was  silent  for  some  moments,  in  sharp  disagree- 
ment. 

"Of  course,"  she  said  coldly.  "If  one  is  a  woman,  and 
grown  up,  one's  instinct  prevents  one.  But  I  cannot  see 
how  that  applies  to  a  couple  of  boys  playing  together." 

Her  voice  was  cold  and  angry. 

"Yes,"  persisted  Ursula.  At  that  moment  they  heard  a 
woman's  voice  a  few  yards  off  say  loudly: 

"Oh  damn  the  thing!"  They  went  forward  and  saw 
Laura  Crich  and  Hermione  Roddice  in  the  field  on  the  other 
side  of  the  hedge,  and  Laura  Crich  struggling  with  the  gate,  to 
get  out.    Ursula  at  once  hurried  up  and  helped  to  lift  the  gate. 

"Thanks  so  much,"  said  Laura,  looking  up  flushed  and 
Amazon-like,  yet  rather  confused.  "It  isn't  right  on  the 
hinges." 

"No,"  said  Ursula.     "And  they're  so  heavy." 

"Surprising!"  cried  Laura. 

"How  do  you  do?"  sang  Hermione,  from  out  of  the  field, 
the  moment  she  could  make  her  voice  heard.  "It's  nice  now. 
Are  you  going  for  a  walk?  Yes?  Isn't  the  young  green 
beautiful?  So  beautiful — quite  burning.  Good  morning — 
good  morning — you'll  come  and  see  me?  Thank  you  so 
much — next  week — yes — good-bye,  g-o-o-d-b-y-e." 

Gudrun  and  Ursula  stood  and  watched  her  slowly  waving 
her  head  up  and  down,  and  waving  her  hand  slowly  in  dis- 
missal, smiling  a  strange  affected  smile,  making  a  tall,  queer, 
frightened  figure,  with  her  heavy  fair  hair  slipping  to  her  eyes. 
Then  they  moved  off,  as  if  they  had  been  dismissed  like  in- 
feriors.     The  four  women  parted. 

As  soon  as  they  had  gone  far  enough,  Ursula  said,  her 
cheeks  burning: 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  51 

"I  do  think  she's  impudent." 

"Who,  Hermione  Roddice?"  asked  Gudrun.     "Why?" 

"The  way  she  treats  one — impudence!" 

"Why,  Ursula,  what  did  you  notice  that  was  so  impu- 
dent?" asked  Gudrun,  rather  coldly. 

"Her  whole  manner — oh,  it's  impossible,  the  way  she  tries 
to  bully  one.  Pure  bullying.  She's  an  impudent  woman. 
'You'll  come  and  see  me,'  as  if  we  should  be  falling  over  our- 
selves for  the  privilege." 

"I  can't  understand,  Ursula,  what  you  are  so  much  put 
out  about,"  said  Gudrun,  in  some  exasperation.  "One  knows 
those  women  are  impudent — these  free  women  who  have 
emancipated  themselves  from  the  aristocracy." 

"But  it  is  so  unnecessary — so  vulgar,"  cried  Ursula. 

"No,  I  don't  see  it. — And  if  I  did — pour  moi,  elle  n'existe 
pas.     I  don't  grant  her  the  power  to  be  impudent  to  me." 

"Do  you  think  she  likes  you?"  asked  Ursula. 

"WV11,  no,  I  shouldn't  think  she  did." 

"Then  why  does  she  ask  you  to  go  to  Breadalby  and  stay 
with  her?" 

Gudrun  lifted  her  shoulders  in  a  low  shrug. 

"After  all,  she's  got  the  sense  to  know  we're  not  just  the 
ordinary  run,"  said  Gudrun.  "Whatever  she  is,  she's  not  a 
fool.  And  I'd  rather  have  somebody  I  detested,  than  the 
ordinary  woman  who  keeps  to  her  own  set.  Hermione  Rod- 
dice  does  risk  herself  in  some  respects." 

Ursula  pondered  this  for  a  time. 

"I  doubt  it,"  she  replied.  "Really  she  risks  nothing  I 
suppose  we  ought  to  admire  her  for  knowing  she  can  invite 
us — school  teachere — and  risk  nothing." 

"Precisely!"  said  Gudrun.  "Think  of  the  myriads  of 
women  that  daren't  do  it.  She  makes  the  most  of  her 
privileges — that's  something.  I  suppose,  really,  we  should  do 
the  same,  in  her  place." 

"No,"  said  Ursula.  "No.  It  would  bore  me.  I  couldn't 
spend  my  time  playing  her  games.     It's  infra  dig." 

The  two  sisters  were  like  a  pair  of  scissors,  snipping  off 
cv.-ry thing  that  came  athwart  them;  or  like  a  knife  and  a 
whetstone,  the  one  sharpened  against  the  other. 


52  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Of  course,"  cried  Ursula,  suddenly,  "she  ought  to  thank 
her  stars  if  we  will  go  and  see  her.  You  are  perfectly  beautiful, 
a  thousand  times  more  beautiful  than  ever  she  is  or  was,  and 
to  my  thinking,  a  thousand  times  more  beautifully  dressed, 
for  she  never  looks  fresh  and  natural,  like  a  flower,  always  old, 
thought-out;  and  we  are  more  intelligent  than  most  people." 

"Undoubtedly,"  said  Gudrun. 

"And  it  ought  to  be  admitted,  simply,"  said  Ursula. 

"Certainly  it  ought,"  said  Gudrun.  "But  you'll  find  that 
the  really  chic  thing  is  to  be  so  absolutely  ordinary,  so  per- 
fectly commonplace  and  like  the  person  in  the  street,  that  you 
really  are  a  masterpiece  of  humanity,  not  the  person  in  the 
street  actually,  but  the  artistic  creation  of  her — " 

"How  awful!"  cried  Ursula. 

"Yes,  Ursula,  it  is  awful,  in  most  respects.  You  daren't 
be  anything  that  isn't  amazingly  a  terre,  so  much  a  terre  that 
it  is  the  artistic  creation  of  ordinaryness." 

"It's  very  dull  to  create  oneself  into  nothing  better," 
laughed  Ursula. 

"Very  dull!"  retorted  Gudrun.  "Really,  Ursula,  it  is  dull, 
that's  just  the  word.  One  longs  to  be  high-flown,  and  make 
speeches  like  Corneille,  after  it." 

Gudrun  was  becoming  flushed  and  excited  over  her  own 
cleverness. 

"Strut,"  said  Ursula.  "One  wants  to  strut,  to  be  a  swan 
among  geese." 

"Exactly,"  cried  Gudrun,  "a  swan  among  geese." 

"They  are  all  so  busy  playing  the  ugly  duckling,"  cried 
Ursula,  with  mocking  laughter.  "And  I  don't  feel  a  bit  like 
a  humble  and  pathetic  ugly  duckling.  I  do  feel  like  a  swan 
among  geese — I  can't  help  it.  They  make  one  feel  so.  And 
I  don't  care  what  they  think  of  me. — Je  m'en  fiche." 

Gudrun  looked  up  at  Ursula  with  a  queer,  uncertain  envy 
and  dislike. 

"Of  course,  the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  despise  them  all — 
just  all,"  she  said. 

The  sisters  went  home  again,  to  read  and  talk  and  work, 
and  wait  for  Monday,  for  school.  Ursula  often  wondered 
what  else  she  waited  for,  besides  the  beginning  and  end  of 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  53 

the  school  week,  and  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  holidays. 
This  was  a  whole  life!  Sometimes  she  had  periods  of  tight 
horror,  when  it  seemed  to  her  that  her  life  would  pass  away, 
and  be  gone,  without  having  been  more  than  this.  But  she 
never  really  accepted  it.  Her  spirit  was  active,  her  life  like 
a  shoot  that  is  growing  steadily,  but  which  has  not  yet  come 
above  ground. 


CHAPTER  V 

ONE  day  at  this  time  Birkin  was  called  to  London.  He 
was  not  very  fixed  in  his  abode.  He  had  rooms  in 
Nottingham,  because  his  work  lay  chiefly  in  that 
town.  But  often  he  was  in  London,  or  in  Oxford.  He  moved 
about  a  great  deal,  his  life  seemed  uncertain,  without  any 
definite  rhythm,  any  organic  meaning. 

On  the  platform  of  the  railway  station  he  saw  Gerald 
Crich,  reading  a  newspaper,  and  evidently  waiting  for  the 
train.  Birkin  stood  some  distance  off,  among  the  people. 
It  was  against  his  instinct  to  approach  anybody. 

From  time  to  time,  in  a  manner  characteristic  of  him, 
Gerald  lifted  his  head  and  looked  around.  Even  though  he 
was  reading  the  newspaper  closely,  he  must  keep  a  watchful 
eye  on  his  external  surroundings.  There  seemed  to  be  a  dual 
consciousness  running  in  him.  He  was  thinking  vigorously 
of  something  he  read  in  the  newspaper,  and  at  the  same  time 
his  eye  ran  over  the  surface  of  the  life  round  him,  and  he 
missed  nothing.  Birkin,  who  was  watching  him,  was  irritated 
by  his  duality.  He  noticed  too,  that  Gerald  seemed  always 
to  be  at  bay  against  everybody,  in  spite  of  his  queer,  genial, 
social  manner  when  roused. 

Now  Birkin  started  violently  at  seeing  this  genial  look 
flash  on  to  Gerald's  face,  at  seeing  Gerald  approaching  with 
hand  outstretched. 

"Hallo,  Rupert,  where  are  you  going?" 

"London.     So  are  you,  I  suppose." 

"Yes—" 

Gerald's  eyes  went  over  Birkin 's  face  in  curiosity. 

"We'll  travel  together  if  you  like,"  he  said. 

"Don't  you  usually  go  first?"  asked  Birkin. 

"I  can't  stand  the  crowd,"  replied  Gerald.  "But  third'll 
be  all  right.    There's  a  restaurant  car,  we  can  have  some  tea." 

The  two  men  looked  at  the  station  clock,  having  nothing 
further  to  say. 

54 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  55 

"What  were  you  reading  in  the  paper?"  Birkin  asked. 

Gerald  looked  at  him  quickly. 

"Isn't  it  funny,  what  they  do  put  in  the  newspapers,"  he 
said.  "Here  are  two  leaders — "  he  held  out  his  Daily  Tele- 
graph, "full  of  the  ordinary  newspaper  cant — "  he  scanned 
the  columns  down — "and  then  there's  this  little — I  dunno 
what  you'd  call  it,  essay,  almost — appearing  with  the  leaders, 
and  saying  there  must  arise  a  man  who  will  give  new  values 
to  things,  give  us  new  truths,  a  new  attitude  to  life,  or  else 
we  shall  be  a  crumbling  nothingness  in  a  few  years,  a  country 
in  ruin — " 

"I  suppose  that's  a  bit  of  newspaper  cant,  as  well,"  said 
Birkin. 

"It  sounds  as  if  the  man  meant  it,  and  quite  genuinely," 
said  Gerald. 

"Give  it  to  me,"  said  Birkin,  holding  out  his  hand  for 
the  paper. 

The  train  came,  and  they  went  on  board,  sitting  on  either 
side  a  little  table,  by  the  window,  in  the  restaurant  car.  Bir- 
kin glanced  over  his  paper,  then  looked  up  at  Gerald,  who 
was  waiting  for  him. 

"I  believe  the  man  means  it,"  he  said,  "as  far  as  he  means 
anything." 

"And  do  you  think  it's  true?  Do  you  think  we  really 
want  a  new  gospel?"  asked  Gerald. 

Birkin  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"I  think  the  people  who  say  they  want  a  new  religion  are 
the  last  to  accept  anything  new.  They  want  novelty  right 
enough.  But  to  stare  straight  at  this  life  that  we've  brought 
upon  ourselves,  and  reject  it,  absolutely  smash  up  the  old 
idols  of  themselves,  that  they'll  never  do.  You've  got  very 
lijidly  to  want  to  get  rid  of  the  old,  before  anything  new  will 
appear — even  in  the  self." 

Gerald  watched  him  closely. 

"You  think  we  ought  to  break  up  this  life,  just  start  and 
l.t  fly?"  he  asked. 

"This  life.  Yes,  I  do.  We've  got  to  bust  it  completely, 
or  shrivel  inside  it,  as  in  a  tight  skin.  For  it  won't  expand 
any  more." 


56  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

There  was  a  queer  little  smile  in  Gerald's  eyes,  a  look  of 
amusement,  calm  and  curious. 

"And  how  do  you  propose  to  begin?  I  suppose  you  mean, 
reform  the  whole  order  of  society?"  he  asked. 

Birkin  had  a  slight,  tense  frown  between  the  brows.  He, 
too,  was  impatient  of  the  conversation. 

"I  don't  propose  at  all,"  he  replied.  "When  we  really 
want  to  go  for  something  better,  we  shall  smash  the  old. 
Until  then,  any  sort  of  proposal,  or  making  proposals,  is  no 
more  than  a  tiresome  game  for  self-important  people." 

The  little  smile  began  to  die  out  of  Gerald's  eyes,  and  he 
said,  looking  with  a  cool  stare  at  Birkin: 

"So  you  really  think  things  are  very  bad?" 

"Completely  bad." 

The  smile  appeared  again. 

"In  what  way?" 

"Every  way,"  said  Birkin.  "We  are  such  dreary  liars. 
Our  one  idea  is  to  lie  to  ourselves.  We  have  an  ideal  of  a 
perfect  world,  clean  and  straight  and  sufficient.  So  we  cover 
the  earth  with  foulness,  life  is  a  blotch  of  labour,  like  insects 
scurrying  in  filth,  so  that  your  collier  can  have  a  pianoforte 
in  his  parlour,  and  you  can  have  a  butler  and  a  motor-car  in 
your  up-to-date  house,  and  as  a  nation  we  can  sport  the 
Ritz,  or  the  Empire,  Gaby  Deslys  and  the  Sunday  newspapers. 
It  is  very  dreary." 

Gerald  took  a  little  time  to  readjust  himself  after  this 
tirade. 

"Would  you  have  us  live  without  houses — return  to 
nature?"  he  asked. 

"I  would  have  nothing  at  all.  People  only  do  what  they 
want  to  do — and  what  they  are  capable  of  doing.  If  they, 
were  capable  of  anything  else,  there  would  be  something  else." 

Again  Gerald  pondered.  He  was  not  going  to  take  offence 
at  Birkin. 

"Don't  you  think  the  collier's  pianoforte,  as  you  call  it, 
is  a  symbol  for  something  very  real,  a  real  desire  for  some- 
thing higher,  in  the  collier's  life?" 

"Higher?"  cried  Birkin.  "Yes.  Amazing  heights  of  up- 
right grandeur.      It  makes  him  so  much  higher  in  his  neigh- 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  57 

bowing  colliers'  eyes.  He  sees  himself  reflected  in  the  neigh- 
bouring opinion,  like  in  a  Brocken  mist,  several  feet  taller  on 
the  strength  of  the  pianoforte,  and  he  is  satisfied.  He  lives 
for  the  sake  of  that  Brocken  spectre,  the  reflection  of  himself 
in  the  human  opinion.  You  do  the  same.  If  you  are  of 
high  importance  to  humanity  you  are  of  high  importance  to 
yourself.  That  is  why  you  work  so  hard  at  the  mines.  If 
you  can  produce  coal  to  cook  five  thousand  dinners  a  day, 
you  are  five  thousand  times  more  important  than  if  you 
cooked  only  your  own  dinner." 

"I  suppose  I  am,"  laughed  Gerald. 

"Can't  you  see,"  said  Birkin,  "that  to  help  my  neighbour 
to  eat  is  no  more  than  eating  myself?  T  eat,  thou  eatest,  he 
eats,  we  eat,  you  eat,  they  eat' — and  what  then?  Why 
should  every  man  decline  the  whole  verb.  First  person,  sin- 
gular, is  enough  for  me." 

"You've  got  to  start  with  material  things,"  said  Gerald. 
Which  statement  Birkin  ignored. 

"And  we've  got  to  live  for  something,  we're  not  just  cattle 
that  can  graze  and  have  done  with  it,"  said  Gerald. 

"Tell  me,"  said  Birkin.  "What  do  you  live  for?"  Ger- 
ald's face  went  baffled. 

"What  do  I  live  for?"  he  repeated.  "I  suppose  I  live  to 
work,  to  produce  something,  in  so  far  as  I  am  a  purposive 
being.     Apart  from  that,  I  live  because  I  am  living." 

"And  what's  your  work?  Getting  so  many  more  thousands 
of  tons  of  coal  out  of  the  earth  every  day.  And  when  we've 
got  all  the  coal  we  want,  and  all  the  plush  furniture,  and 
pianofortes,  and  the  rabbits  are  all  stewed  and  eaten,  and 
we're  all  warm  and  our  bellies  are  filled  and  we're  listening 
to  the  young  lady  performing  on  the  pianoforte — what  then? 
What  then,  when  you've  inade  a  real  fair  start  with  your 
material  things?" 

Gerald  sat  laughing  at  the  words  and  the  mocking  humour 
of  the  other  man.     But  he  was  cogitating  too. 

"We  haven't  got  there  yet,"  he  replied.  "A  good  many 
people  are  still  waiting  for  the  rabbit  and  the  fire  to  cook  it." 

"So  while  you  get  the  coal  I  must  chase  the  rabbit?" 
said  Birkin,  mocking  at  Gerald. 


58  WOMEN  IN   LOVE 

"Something  like  that,"  said  Gerald. 

Birkin  watched  him  narrowly.  He  saw  the  perfect  good- 
humoured  callousness,  even  strange,  glistening  malice,  in 
Gerald,  glistening  through  the  plausible  ethics  of  produc- 
tivity. 

"Gerald,"  he  said,  "I  rather  hate  you." 

"I  know  you  do,"  said  Gerald.     "Why  do  you?" 

Birkin  mused  inscrutably  for  some  minutes. 

"I  should  like  to  know  if  you  are  conscious  of  hating  me," 
he  said  at  last.  "Do  you  ever  consciously  detest  me — hate 
me  with  mystic  hate?  There  are  odd  moments  when  I  hate 
you  starrily." 

Gerald  was  rather  taken  aback,  even  a  little  disconcerted. 
He  did  not  quite  know  what  to  say. 

"I  may,  of  course,  hate  you  sometimes,"  he  said.  "But 
I'm  not  aware  of  it — never  acutely  aware  of  it,  that  is." 

"So  much  the  worse,"  said  Birkin. 

Gerald  watched  him  with  curious  eyes.  He  could  not 
quite  make  him  out. 

"So  much  the  worse,  is  it?"  he  repeated. 

There  was  a  silence  between  the  two  men  for  some  time, 
as  the  train  ran  on.  In  Birkin's  face  was  a  little  irritable 
tension,  a  sharp  knitting  of  the  brows,  keen  and  difficult. 
Gerald  watched  him  warily,  carefully,  rather  calculatingly,  for 
he  could  not  decide  what  he  was  after. 

Suddenly  Birkin's  eyes  looked  straight  and  overpowering 
into  those  of  the  other  man. 

"What  do  you  think  is  the  aim  and  object  of  your  life, 
Gerald?"  he  asked. 

Again  Gerald  was  taken  aback.  He  could  not  think  what 
his  friend  was  getting  at.     Was  he  poking  fun,  or  not? 

"At  this  moment,  I  couldn't  say  off-hand,"  he  replied, 
with  faintly  ironic  humour. 

"Do  you  think  love  is  the  be-all  and  the  end-all  of  life?" 
Birkin  asked,  with  direct,  attentive  seriousness. 

"Of  my  own  life?"  said  Gerald. 

"Yes." 

There  was  a  really  puzzled  pause. 

"I  can't  say,"  said  Gerald.     "It  hasn't  been,  so  far." 


WOMEN  IK  LOVE  59 

"What  has  your  life  been,  so  far?" 

"Oh — finding  out  things  for  myself — and  getting  experi- 
ences— and  making  things  go." 

Birkin  knitted  his  brows  like  sharply  moulded  steel. 

"I  find,"  he  said,  "that  one  needs  some  one  really  pure, 
single  activity — I  should  call  love  a  single,  pure  activity.  But 
I  don't  really  love  anybody — not  now." 

"Have  you  ever  really  loved  anybody?"  asked  Gerald. 

"Yes  and  no,"  replied  Birkin. 

"Not  finally?"  said  Gerald. 

"Finally — finally — no,"  said  Birkin. 

"Nor  I,"  said  Gerald. 

"And  do  you  want  to?"  said  Birkin. 

Gerald  looked  with  a  long,  twinkling,  almost  sardonic  look 
into  the  eyes  of  the  other  man. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said. 

"I  do — I  want  to  love,"  said  Birkin. 

"You  do?" 

"Yes.     I  want  the  finality  of  love." 

"The  finality  of  love,"  repeated  Gerald.  And  he  waited 
for  a  moment. 

"Just  one  woman,"  he  added.  The  evening  light,  flood- 
ing yellow  along  the  fields,  lit  up  Birkin's  face  with  a  tense, 
abstract  steadfastness.     Gerald  still  could  not  make  it  out. 

"Yes,  one  woman,"  said  Birkin. 

But  to  Gerald  it  sounded  as  if  he  were  insistent  rather  than 
confident. 

"I  don't  believe  a  woman,  and  nothing  but  a  woman,  will 
ever  make  my  life,"  said  Gerald. 

"Not  the  centre  and  core  of  it — the  love  between  you  and  a 
woman?"  asked  Birkin. 

Gerald's  eyes  narrowed  with  a  queer  dangerous  smile  as 
he  watched  the  other  man. 

"I  never  quite  feel  it  that  way,"  he  said. 

"You  don't?     Then  wherein  does  life  centre,  for  you?" 

"I  don't  know — that's  what  I  want  somebody  to  tell  me. 
As  far  as  I  can  make  out,  it  doesn't  centre  at  all.  It  is  arti- 
ficially held  together  by  the  social  mechanism." 

Birkin  pondered  as  if  he  would  crack  something. 


60  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"I  know,"  he  said,  "it  just  doesn't  centre.  The  old  ideals 
are  dead  as  nails — nothing  there.  It  seems  to  me  there 
remains  only  this  perfect  union  with  a  woman — sort  of  ulti- 
mate marriage — and  there  isn't  anything  else." 

"And  you  mean  if  there  isn't  the  woman,  there's  nothing?" 
said  Gerald. 

"Pretty  well  that — seeing  there's  no  God." 

"Then  we're  hard  put  to  it,"  said  Gerald.  And  he  turned 
to  look  out  of  the  window  at  the  flying,  golden  landscape. 

Birkin  could  not  help  seeing  how  beautiful  and  soldierly 
his  face  was,  with  a  certain  courage  to  be  indifferent. 

"You  think  it's  heavy  odds  against  us?"  said  Birkin. 

"K  we've  got  to  make  our  life  up  out  of  a  woman,  one 
woman,  woman  only,  yes,  I  do,"  said  Gerald.  "I  don't  be- 
lieve I  shall  ever  make  up  my  life,  at  that  rate." 

Birkin  watched  him  almost  angrily. 

"You  are  a  born  unbeliever,"  he  said. 

"I  only  feel  what  I  feel,"  said  Gerald.  And  he  looked 
again  at  Birkin  almost  sardonically,  with  his  blue,  manly, 
sharp-lighted  eyes.  Birkin's  eyes  were  at  the  moment  full  of 
anger.  But  swiftly  they  became  troubled,  doubtful,  then  full 
of  a  warm,  rich  affectionateness  and  laughter. 

"It  troubles  me  very  much,  Gerald,"  he  said,  wrinkling 
his  brows. 

"I  can  see  it  does,"  said  Gerald,  uncovering  his  mouth  in 
a  manly,  quick,  soldierly  laugh. 

Gerald  was  held  unconsciously  by  the  other  man.  He 
wanted  to  be  near  him,  he  wanted  to  be  within  his  sphere  of 
influence.  There  was  something  very  congenial  to  him  in 
Birkin.  But  yet,  beyond  this,  he  did  not  take  much  notice. 
He  felt  that  he,  himself,  Gerald,  had  harder  and  more  durable 
truths  than  any  the  other  man  knew.  He  felt  himself  older, 
more  knowing.  It  was  the  quick-changing  warmth  and 
venality  and  brilliant  warm  utterance  he  loved  in  his  friend. 
It  was  the  rich  play  of  words  and  quick  interchange  of  feel- 
ings he  enjoyed.  The  real  content  of  the  words  he  never 
really  considered;  he  himself  knew  better. 

Birkin  knew  this.  He  knew  that  Gerald  wanted  to  be 
fond  of  him  without  taking  him  seriously.      And  this  made 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  61 

him  go  hard  and  cold.  As  the  train  ran  on,  he  sat  looking 
at  the  land,  and  Gerald  fell  away,  became  as  nothing  to  him. 

Birkin  looked  at  the  land,  at  the  evening,  and  was  think- 
ing: "Well,  if  mankind  is  destroyed,  if  our  race  is  destroyed 
like  Sodom,  and  there  is  this  beautiful  evening  with  the 
luminous  land  and  trees,  I  am  satisfied.  That  which  informs 
it  all  is  there,  and  can  never  be  lost.  After  all,  what  is  man- 
kind but  just  one  expression  of  the  incomprehensible.  And 
if  mankind  passes  away,  it  will  only  mean  that  this  particular 
expression,  is  completed  and  done.  That  which  is  expressed, 
and  that  which  is  to  be  expressed,  cannot  be  diminished. 
There  it  is,  in  the  shining  evening.  Let  mankind  pass  away 
— time  it  did.  The  creative  utterances  will  not  cease,  they 
will  only  be  there.  Humanity  doesn't  embody  the  utterance 
of  the  incomprehensible  any  more.  Humanity  is  a  dead 
letter.  There  will  be  a  new  embodiment,  in  a  new  way. 
Let  humanity  disappear  as  quick  as  possible." 

Gerald  interrupted  him  by  asking: 

"Where  are  you  staying  in  London?" 

Birkin  looked  up. 

"With  a  man  in  Soho.  I  pay  part  of  the  rent  of  a  flat, 
and  stop  there  when  I  like." 

"Good  idea — have  a  place  more  or  less  your  own,"  said 
G.-rald. 

"Yes.  But  I  don't  care  for  it  much.  I'm  tired  of  the 
people  I  am  bound  to  find  there." 

"What  kind  of  people?" 

"Art — music — London  Bohemia — the  most  pettifogging 
calculating  Bohemia  that  ever  reckoned  its  pennies.  But  there 
are  a  few  decent  people,  decent  in  some  respects.  They  are 
really  very  thorough  rejecters  of  the  world — perhaps  they  live 
only  in  the  gesture  of  rejection  and  negation — but  negatively 
something,  at  any  rate." 

"What  are  they?     Painters,  musicians?" 

"Painters,  musicians,  writers — hangers-on,  models,  ad- 
vanced young  people,  anybody  who  is  openly  at  outs  with  the 
conventions,  and  belongs  to  nowhere  particularly.  They  are 
often  young  fellows  down  from  the  University,  and  girls  who 
an-  living  their  own  lives,  as  they  say." 


62  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"All  loose?"  said  Gerald. 

Birkin  could  see  his  curiosity  roused. 

"In  one  way.  Most  bound,  in  another.  For  all  their 
shockingness,  all  on  one  note." 

He  looked  at  Gerald,  and  saw  how  his  blue  eyes  were  lit 
up  with  a  little  flame  of  curious  desire.  He  saw  too,  how 
good-looking  he  was.  Gerald  was  attractive,  his  blood  seemed 
fluid  and  electric.  His  blue  eyes  burned  with  a  keen,  yet  cold 
light,  there  was  a  certain  beauty,  a  beautiful  passivity  in  all 
his  body,  his  moulding. 

"We  might  see  something  of  each  other — I  am  in  London 
for  two  or  three  days,"  said  Gerald. 

"Yes,"  said  Birkin.  "I  don't  want  to  go  to  the  theatre, 
or  the  music  hall — you'd  better  come  round  to  the  flat,  and 
see  what  you  can  make  of  Halliday  and  his  crowd." 

"Thanks — I  should  like  to,"  laughed  Gerald.  "What  are 
you  doing  to-night?" 

"I  promised  to  meet  Halliday  at  the  Pompadour.  It's  a 
bad  place,  but  there  is  nowhere  else." 

"Where  is  it?"  asked  Gerald. 

"Piccadilly  Circus." 

"Oh  yes — well,  shall  I  come  round  there?" 

"By  all  means,  it  might  amuse  you." 

The  evening  was  falling.  They  had  passed  Bedford.  Bir- 
kin watched  the  country,  and  was  filled  with  a  sort  of  hope- 
lessness. He  always  felt  this,  on  approaching  London.  His 
dislike  of  mankind,  of  the  mass  of  mankind,  amounted  almost 
to  an  illness. 

"  'Where  the  quiet  coloured  end  of  evening  smiles 
Miles  and  miles — '  " 
he  was  murmuring  to  himself,  like  a  man  condemned  to  death. 
Gerald,  who  was  very  subtly  alert,  wary  in  all  his  senses, 
leaned  forward  and  asked  smilingly: 

"What  were  you  saying?"  Birkin  glanced  at  him,  laughed, 
and  repeated: 

"  'Where  the  quiet  coloured  end  of  evening  smiles, 
Miles  and  miles, 
Over  pastures  where  the  something  something  sheep 
Half  asleep — '  " 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  63 

Gerald  also  looked  now  at  the  country.  And  Birkin,  who,  for 
some  reason  was  now  tired  and  dispirited,  said  to  him: 

"I  always  feel  doomed  when  the  train  is  running  into 
London.  I  feel  such  a  despair,  so  hopeless,  as  if  it  were  the 
end  of  the  world." 

"Really!"  said  Gerald.  "And  does  the  end  of  the  world 
frighten  you?" 

Birkin  lifted  his  shoulders  in  a  slow  shrug. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said.  "It  does  while  it  hangs  immi- 
nent and  doesn't  fall.  But  people  give  me  a  bad  feeling — 
very  bad." 

There  was  a  roused  glad  smile  in  Gerald's  eyes. 

"Do  they?"  he  said.  And  he  watched  the  other  man 
critically. 

In  a  few  minutes  the  train  was  running  through  the  dis- 
grace of  outspread  London.  Everybody  in  the  carriage  was 
on  the  alert,  waiting  to  escape.  At  last  they  were  under  the 
huge  arch  of  the  station,  in  the  tremendous  shadow  of  the 
town.     Birkin  shut  himself  together — he  was  in  now. 

The  two  men  went  together  in  a  taxi-cab. 

"Don't  you  feel  like  one  of  the  damned?"  asked  Birkin, 
as  they  sat  in  the  little,  swiftly  running  enclosure,  and  watched 
the  hideous  great  street. 

"No,"  laughed  Gerald. 

"It  is  real  death,"  said  Birkin. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THEY  met  again  in  the  caf<5  several  hours  later.  Gerald 
went  through  the  push  doors  into  the  large,  lofty  room 
where  the  faces  and  heads  of  the  drinkers  showed  dimly 
through  the  haze  of  smoke,  reflected  more  dimly  and  repeated 
ad  infinitum  in  the  great  mirrors  on  the  walls,  so  that  one 
seemed  to  enter  a  vague,  dim  world  of  shadowy  drinkers, 
humming  within  an  atmosphere  of  blue  tobacco  smoke.  There 
was,  however,  the  red  plush  of  the  seats  to  give  substance 
within  the  bubble  of  pleasure. 

Gerald  moved  in  his  slow,  observant,  glistening-attentive 
motion  down  between  the  tables  and  the  people  whose  shadowy 
faces  looked  up  as  he  passed.  He  seemed  to  be  entering  in 
some  strange  element,  passing  into  an  illuminated  new  region, 
among  a  host  of  licentious  souls.  He  was  pleased,  and  enter- 
tained. He  looked  over  all  the  dim,  evanescent,  strangely 
illuminated  faces  that  bent  across  the  tables.  Then  he  saw 
Birkin  rise  and  signal  to  him. 

At  Birkin's  table  was  a  girl  with  dark,  soft,  fluffy  hair 
cut  short  in  the  artist  fashion,  hanging  level  and  full  almost 
like  the  Egyptian  princess's.  She  was  small  and  delicately 
made,  with  warm  colouring  and  large,  dark  hostile  eyes.  There 
was  a  delicacy,  almost  a  beauty  in  all  her  form,  and  at  the 
same  time  a  certain  attractive  grossness  of  spirit,  that  made  a 
little  spark  leap  instantly  alight  in  Gerald's  eyes. 

Birkin,  who  looked  muted,  unreal,  his  presence  left  out, 
introduced  her  as  Miss  Darrington.  She  gave  her  hand  with 
a  sudden,  unwilling  movement,  looking  all  the  while  at  Gerald 
with  a  dark,  exposed  stare.  A  glow  came  over  him  as  he 
sat  down. 

The  waiter  appeared.  Gerald  glanced  at  the  glasses  of  the 
other  two.  Birkin  was  drinking  something  green,  Miss  Dar- 
rington had  a  small  liqueur  glass  that  was  empty  save  for  a 
tiny  drop. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  65 

"Won't  you  have  some  more — ?" 

"Brandy,"  she  said,  sipping  her  last  drop  and  putting 
down  the  glass.      The  waiter  disappeared. 

"No,"  she  said  to  Birkin.  "He  doesn't  know  I'm  back. 
He'll  be  terwified  when  he  sees  me  here." 

She  spoke  her  r's  like  w's,  lisping  with  a  slightly  babyish 
pronunciation  which  was  at  once  affected  and  true  to  her 
character.     Her  voice  was  dull  and  toneless. 

""Where  is  he,  then?"  asked  Birkin. 

"He's  doing  a  private  show  at  Lady  Snellgrove's,"  said 
the  girl.      "Warens  is  there  too." 

There  was  a  pause. 

"Well,  then,"  said  Birkin,  in  a  dispassionate  protective 
manner,  "what  do  you  intend  to  do?" 

The  girl  paused  sullenly.     She  hated  the  question. 

"I  don't  intend  to  do  anything,"  she  replied.  "I  shall 
look  for  some  sittings  to-morrow." 

"Who  shall  you  go  to?"  asked  Birkin. 

"I  shall  go  to  Bentley's  first.  But  I  believe  he's  angwy 
with  me  for  running  away." 

"That  is  from  the  Madonna?" 

"Yes.  And  then  if  he  doesn't  want  me,  I  know  I  can 
get  work  with  Carmarthen." 

"Carmarthen?" 

"Lord  Carmarthen — he  does  photographs." 

"Chiffon  and  shoulders — " 

"Yes.     But  he's  awfully  decent."     There  was  a  pause. 

"And  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  Julius?"  he  asked. 

"Nothing,"  she  said.     "I  shall  just  ignore  him." 

"You've  done  with  him  altogether?"  But  she  turned  aside 
her  face  sullenly,  and  did  not  answer  the  question. 

Another  young  man  came  hurrying  up  to  the  table. 

"Hallo  Birkin!  Hallo  Pusmm,  when  did  you  come  back?" 
he  Nttd  eagerly. 

"To-day." 

"Does  Halliday  know?" 

"I  don't  know.     I  don't  care  either." 

"Ha-ha!  The  wind  still  sits  in  that  quarter,  does  it? 
Do  you  mind  if  I  come  over  to  this  table?" 


66  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"I'm  talking  to  Wupert,  do  you  mind?"  she  replied,  coolly 
and  yet  appealingly,  like  a  child. 

"Open  confession — good  for  the  soul,  eh?"  said  the  young 
man.      "Well,  so  long." 

And  giving  a  sharp  look  at  Birkin  and  at  Gerald,  the 
young  man  moved  off,  with  a  swing  of  his  coat  skirts. 

All  this  time  Gerald  had  been  completely  ignored.  And 
yet  he  felt  that  the  girl  was  physically  aware  -of  his  proximity. 
He  waited,  listened,  and  tried  to  piece  together  the  conversa- 
tion. 

"Are  you  staying  at  the  flat?"  the  girl  asked,  of  Birkin. 

"For  three  days,"  replied  Birkin.      "And  you?" 

"I  don't  know  yet.  I  can  always  go  to  Bertha's."  There 
was  a  silence. 

Suddenly  the  girl  turned  to  Gerald,  and  said,  in  a  rather 
formal,  polite  voice,  with  the  distant  manner  of  a  woman  who 
accepts  her  position  as  a  social  inferior,  yet  assumes  intimate 
camaraderie  with  the  male  she  addresses: 

"Do  you  know  London  well?" 

"I  can  hardly  say,"  he  laughed.  "I've  been  up  a  good 
many  times,  but  I  was  never  in  this  place  before." 

"You're  not  an  artist,  then?"  she  said,  in  a  tone  that 
placed  him  an  outsider. 

"No,"  he  replied. 

"He's  a  soldier,  and  an  explorer,  and  a  Napoleon  of  indus- 
try," said  Birkin,  giving  Gerald  his  credentials  for  Bohemia. 

"Are  you  a  soldier?"  asked  the  girl,  with  a  cold  yet  lively 
curiosity. 

"No,  I  resigned  my  commission,"  said  Gerald,  "some  years 
ago." 

"He  was  in  the  last  war,"  said  Birkin. 

"Were  you  really?"  said  the  girl. 

"And  then  he  explored  the  Amazon,"  said  Birkin,  "and 
now  he  is  ruling  over  coal-mines." 

The  girl  looked  at  Gerald  with  steady,  calm  curiosity. 
He  laughed,  hearing  himself  described.  He  felt  proud,  too, 
full  of  male  strength.  His  blue,  keen  eyes  were  lit  up  with 
laughter,  his  ruddy  face,  with  its  sharp  fair  hair,  was  full  of 
satisfaction,  and  glowing  with  life.      He  piqued  her. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  67 

"How  long  are  you  staying?"  she  asked  him. 

"A  day  or  two,"  he  replied.  "But  there  is  no  particular 
hurry." 

Still  she  stared  into  his  face  with  that  slow,  full  gaze 
which  was  so  curious  and  so  exciting  to  him.  He  was  acutely 
and  delightfully  conscious  of  himself,  of  his  own  attractiveness. 
He  felt  full  of  strength,  able  to  give  off  a  sort  of  electric  power. 
And  he  was  aware  of  her  dark,  hot-looking  eyes  upon  him. 
She  had  beautiful  eyes,  dark,  fully  opened,  hot,  naked  in  their 
looking  at  him.  And  on  them  there  seemed  to  float  a  film  of 
disintegration,  a  sort  of  misery  and  sullenness,  like  oil  and 
water.  She  wore  no  hat  in  the  heated  caf6,  her  loose,  simple 
jumper  was  strung  on  a  string  round  her  neck.  But  it  was 
made  of  rich  peach-coloured  crepe-de-chine,  that  hung  heavily 
and  softly  from  her  young  throat  and  her  slender  wrists.  Her 
appearance  was  simple  and  complete,  really  beautiful,  because 
of  her  regularity  and  form,  her  soft,  dark  hair  falling  full  and 
level  on  either  side  of  her  head,  her  straight,  small,  softened 
features,  Egyptian  in  the  slight  fullness  of  their  curves,  her 
slender  neck  and  the  simple,  rich-coloured  smock  hanging  on 
her  slender  shoulders.  She  was  very  still,  almost  null,  in  her 
manner,  apart  and  watchful. 

She  appealed  to  Gerald  strongly.  He  felt  an  awful,  en- 
joyable power  over  her,  an  instinctive  cherishing  very  near  to 
cruelty.  For  she  was  a  victim.  He  felt  that  she  was  in  his 
power,  and  he  was  generous.  The  electricity  was  turgid  and 
voluptuously  rich,  in  his  limbs.  He  would  be  able  to  destroy 
her  utterly  in  the  strength  of  his  discharge.  But  she  was 
waiting  in  her  separation,  given. 

They  talked  banalities  for  some  time.  Suddenly  Birkin 
said: 

"There's  Julius!"  and  he  half  rose  to  his  feet,  motioning 
to  the  newcomer.  The  girl,  with  a  curious,  almost  evil  mo- 
tion, looked  round  over  her  shoulder  without  moving  her 
body.  Gerald  watched  her  dark,  soft  hair  swing  over  her 
ears.  He  felt  her  watching  intensely  the  man  who  was 
approaching,  so  he  looked  too.  He  saw  a  pale,  full-built 
young  man  with  rather  long,  solid  fair  hair  hanging  from  under 
his  black  hat,  moving  cumbrously  down  the  room,  his  face 


68  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

lit  up  with  a  smile  at  once  naive  and  warm,  and  vapid.      He 
approached  towards  Birkin,  with  a  haste  of  welcome. 

It  was  not  till  he  was  quite  close  that  he  perceived  the  girl. 
He  recoiled,  went  pale,  and  said,  in  a  high,  squealing  voice: 

"Pussum,  what  are  you  doing  here?" 

The  caf6  looked  up  like  animals  when  they  hear  a  cry. 
Halliday  hung  motionless,  an  almost  imbecile  smile  flickering 
palely,  on  his  face.  The  girl  only  stared  at  him  with  a  black 
look  in  which  flared  an  unfathomable  hell  of  knowledge,  and 
a  certain  impotence.      She  was  limited  by  him. 

"Why  have  you  come  back?"  repeated  Halliday,  in  the 
same  high,  hysterical  voice.      "I  told  you  not  to  come  back." 

The  girl  did  not  answer,  only  stared  in  the  same  viscous, 
heavy  fashion,  straight  at  him,  as  he  stood  recoiled,  as  if  for 
safety,  against  the  next  table. 

"You  know  you  wanted  her  to  come  back — come  and  sit 
down,"  said  Birkin  to  him. 

"No,  I  didn't  want  her  to  come  back,  and  I  told  her  not 
to  come  back.     What  have  you  come  for,  Pussum?" 

"For  nothing  from  you,"  she  said  in  a  heavy  voice  of  re- 
sentment. 

"Then  why  have  you  come  back  at  all?"  cried  Halliday, 
his  voice  rising  to  a  kind  of  squeal. 

"She  comes  as  she  likes,"  said  Birkin.  "Are  you  going  to 
sit  down,  or  are  you  not?" 

"No,  I  won't  sit  down  with  Pussum,"  cried  Halliday. 

"I  won't  hurt  you,  you  needn't  be  afraid,"  she  said  to  him, 
very  curtly,  and  yet  with  a  sort  of  protectiveness  towards  him, 
in  her  voice. 

Halliday  came  and  sat  at  the  table,  putting  his  hand  on  his 
heart,  and  crying: 

"Oh,  it's  given  me  such  a  turn!    Pussum,  I  wish  you 
wouldn't  do  these  things.      Why  did  you  come  back?" 

"Not  for  anything  from  you,"  she  repeated. 

"You've  said  that,  before,"  he  cried  in  a  high  voice. 

She  turned  completely  away  from  him,  to  Gerald  Crich, 
whose  eyes  were  shining  wifch  a  subtle  amusement. 

"Were  you  ever  vewy  much  afwaid  of  the  savages?"  she 
asked  in  her  calm,  dull  childish  voice. 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  69 

"No — never  very  much  afraid.  On  the  whole  they're 
harmless — they're  not  born  yet,  you  can't  feel  really  afraid  of 
them.      You  know  you  can  manage  them." 

"Do  you  weally?     Aren't  they  vewy  fierce?" 

"Not  very.  There  aren't  many  fierce  things,  as  a  matter 
of  fact.  There  aren't  many  things,  neither  people  nor  ani- 
mals, that  have  it  in  them  to  be  really  dangerous." 

"Except  in  herds,"  interrupted  Birkin. 

"Aren't  there  really?"  she  said.  "Oh,  I  thought  savages 
were  all  so  dangerous,  they'd  have  your  life  before  you  could 
look  round." 

"Did  you?"  he  laughed.  "They  are  over-rated,  savages. 
They're  too  much  like  other  people,  not  exciting,  after  the 
first  acquaintance." 

"Oh,  it's  not  so  very  wonderfully  brave  then,  to  be  an 
explorer?" 

"No.     It's  more  a  question  of  hardships  than  of  terrors." 

"Oh!     And  weren't  you  ever  afwaid?" 

"In  my  life?  I  don't  know.  Yes,  I'm  afraid  of  some 
things — of  being  shut  up,  locked  up  anywhere — or  being  fas- 
tened.     I'm  afraid  of  being  bound  hand  and  foot." 

She  looked  at  him  steadily  with  her  dark  eyes,  that  rested 
on  him  and  roused  him  so  deeply,  that  it  left  his  upper  self 
quite  calm.  It  was  rather  delicious,  to  feel  her  drawing  his 
self-revelations  from  him,  as  from  the  very  innermost  dark 
marrow  of  his  body.  She  wanted  to  know.  And  her  dark 
eyes  seemed  to  be  looking  through  into  his  naked  organism. 
He  felt,  she  was  compelled  to  him,  she  was  fated  to  come  into 
contact  with  him,  must  have  the  seeing  him  and  knowing  him. 
And  this  roused  a  curious  exultance.  Also  he  felt,  she  must 
relinquish  herself  into  his  hands,  and  be  subject  to  him.  She 
was  so  profane,  slave-like,  watching  him,  absorbed  by  him. 
It  was  not  that  she  was  interested  in  what  he  said:  she  was 
absorbed  by  his  self-revelation,  by  him,  she  wanted  the  secret 
of  him,  the  experience  of  his  male  being. 

Gerald's  face  was  lit  up  with  an  uncanny  smile,  full  of 
light  and  rousedness,  yet  unconscious.  He  sat  with  his  arms 
on  the  table,  his  sun-browned,  rather  sinister  hands,  that  were 
animal  and  yet  very  shapely  and  attractive,  pushed  forward 


70  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

towards  her.  And  they  fascinated  her.  And  she  knew,  she 
watched  her  own  fascination. 

Other  men  had  come  to  the  table,  to  talk  with  Birkin  and 
Halliday.      Gerald  said,  in  a  low  voice,  apart,  to  Pussum: 

"Where  have  you  come  back  from?" 

"From  the  country,"  replied  Pussum,  in  a  very  low,  yet 
fully  resonant  voice.  Her  face  closed  hard.  Continually  she 
glanced  at  Halliday,  and  then  a  black  flare  came  over  her 
eyes.  The  heavy,  fair  young  man  ignored  her  completely; 
he  was  really  afraid  of  her.  For  some  moments  she  would  be 
unaware  of  Gerald.     He  had  not  conquered  her  yet. 

"And  what  has  Halliday  to  do  with  it?"  he  asked,  his 
voice  still  muted. 

She  would  not  answer  for  some  seconds.  Then  she  said, 
unwillingly: 

"He  made  me  go  and  live  with  him,  and  now  he  wants  to 
throw  me  over.  And  yet  he  won't  let  me  go  to  anybody 
else.  He  wants  me  to  live  hidden  in  the  country.  And  then 
he  says  I  persecute  him,  that  he  can't  get  rid  of  me." 

"Doesn't  know  his  own  mind,"  said  Gerald. 

"He  hasn't  any  mind,  so  he  can't  know  it,"  she  said.  "He 
waits  for  what  somebody  tells  him  to  do.  He  never  does  any- 
thing he  wants  to  do  himself — because  he  doesn't  know  what 
he  wants.      He's  a  perfect  baby." 

Gerald  looked  at  Halliday  for  some  moments,  watching  the 
soft,  rather  degenerate  face  of  the  young  man.  Its  very  soft- 
ness was  an  attraction;  it  was  a  soft,  warm,  corrupt  nature, 
into  which  one  might  plunge  with  gratification. 

"But  he  has  no  hold  over  you,  has  he?"  Gerald  asked. 

"You  see  he  made  me  go  and  live  with  him,  when  I  didn't 
want  to,"  she  replied.  "He  came  and  cried  to  me,  tears, 
you  never  saw  so  many,  saying  he  couldn't  bear  it  unless  I 
went  back  to  him.  And  he  wouldn't  go  away,  he  would  have 
stayed  for  ever.  He  made  me  go  back.  Then  every  time 
he  behaves  in  this  fashion. — And  now  I'm  going  to  have  a 
baby,  he  wants  to  give  me  a  hundred  pounds  and  send  me 
into  the  country,  so  that  he  would  never  see  me  nor  hear  of 
me  again.     But  I'm  not  going  to  do  it,  after — " 

A  queer  look  came  over  Gerald's  face. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  71 

"Are  you  going  to  have  a  child?"  he  asked  incredulous. 
It  seemed,  to  look  at  her,  impossible,  she  was  so  young  and 
so  far  in  spirit  from  any  childbearing. 

She  looked  full  into  his  face,  and  her  dark,  inchoate  eyes 
had  now  a  furtive  look,  and  a  look  of  a  knowledge  of  evil, 
dark  and  indomitable.     A  flame  ran  secretly  to  his  heart. 

"Yes,"  she  said.     "Isn't  it  beastly?" 

"Don't  you  want  it?"  he  asked. 

"I  don't,"  she  replied  emphatically. 

"But — "  he  said,  "how  long  have  you  known?" 

"Ten  weeks,"  she  said. 

All  the  time  she  kept  her  dark,  inchoate  eyes  full  upon 
him.  He  remained  silent,  thinking.  Then,  switching  off  and 
becoming  cold,  he  asked,  in  a  voice  full  of  considerate  kind- 
ness: 

"Is  there  anything  we  can  eat  here?  Is  there  anything 
you  would  like?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "I  should  adore  some  oysters." 

"All  right,"  he  said.  "We'll  have  oysters."  And  he 
beckoned  to  the  waiter. 

Halliday  took  no  notice,  until  the  little  plate  was  set  before 
her.     Then  suddenly  he  cried: 

"Pussum,  you  can't  eat  oysters  when  you're  drinking 
brandy." 

"What  has  it  got  to  do  with  you?"  she  asked. 

"Nothing,  nothing,"  he  cried.  "But  you  can't  eat  oysters 
when  you're  drinking  brandy." 

"I'm  not  drinking  brandy,"  she  replied,  and  she  sprinkled 
the  last  drops  of  her  liqueur  over  his  face.  He  gave  an  odd 
squeal.     She  sat  looking  at  him,  as  if  indifferent. 

"Pussum,  why  do  you  do  that?"  he  cried  in  panic.  He 
gave  Gerald  the  impression  that  he  was  terrified  of  her,  and 
that  he  loved  his  terror.  He  seemed  to  relish  his  own  horror 
and  hatred  of  her,  turn  it  over  and  extract  every  flavour  from 
it,  in  real  panic.  Gerald  thought  him  a  strange  fool,  and 
yet  piquant. 

"But,  Pussum,"  said  another  man,  in  a  very  small,  quick 
Eton  voice,  "you  promised  not  to  hurt  him." 

"I  haven't  hurt  him,"  she  answered. 


72  WOMEN  IN   LOVE 

"What  will  you  drink?"  the  young  man  asked.  He  was 
dark,  and  smooth-skinned,  and  full  of  a  stealthy  vigour. 

"I  don't  like  porter,  Maxim,"  she  replied. 

"You  must  ask  for  champagne,"  came  the  whispering,  gen- 
tlemanly voice  of  the  other. 

Gerald  suddenly  realised  that  this  was  a  hint  to  him. 

"Shall  we  have  champagne?"  he  asked,  laughing. 

"Yes,  please,  dwy,"  she  lisped  childishly. 

Gerald  watched  her  eating  the  oysters.  She  was  delicate 
and  finicking  in  her  eating,  her  fingers  were  fine  and  seemed 
very  sensitive  in  the  tips,  so  she  put  her  food  apart  with  fine, 
small  motions,  she  ate  carefully,  delicately.  It  pleased  him 
very  much  to  see  her,  and  it  irritated  Birkin.  They  were  all 
drinking  champagne.  Maxim,  the  prim  young  Russian  with 
the  smooth,  warm-coloured  face  and  black,  oiled  hair,  was  the 
only  one  who  seemed  to  be  perfectly  calm  and  sober.  Birkin 
was  white  and  abstract,  unnatural,  Gerald  was  smiling  with  a 
constant  bright,  amused,  cold  light  in  his  eyes,  leaning  a  little 
protectively  towards  the  Pussum,  who  was  very  handsome, 
and  soft,  unfolded  like  some  red  lotus  in  dreadful  flowering 
nakedness,  vainglorious  now,  flushed  with  wine  and  with  the 
excitement  of  men.  Halliday  looked  foolish.  One  glass  of 
wine  was  enough  to  make  him  drunk  and  giggling.  Yet  there 
was  always  a  pleasant,  warm  naivete'  about  him,  that  made 
him  attractive. 

"I'm  not  afwaid  of  anything  essept  black-beetles,"  said  the 
Pussum,  looking  up  suddenly  and  staring  with  her  black  eyes, 
on  which  there  seemed  an  unseeing  film  of  flame,  fully  upon 
Gerald.  He  laughed  dangerously,  from  the  blood.  Her  child- 
ish speech  caressed  his  nerves,  and  her  burning,  filmed  eyes, 
turned  now  full  upon  him,  oblivious  of  all  her  antecedents, 
gave  him  a  sort  of  licence. 

"I'm  not,"  she  protested.  "I'm  not  afwaid  of  other  things. 
But  black-beetles — ugh!"  she  shuddered  convulsively,  as  if  the 
very  thought  were  too  much  to  bear. 

"Do  you  mean,"  said  Gerald,  with  the  punctiliousness  of 
a  man  who  has  been  drinking,  "that  you  are  afraid  of  the 
sight  of  a  black-beetle,  or  you  are  afraid  of  a  black-beetle 
biting  you,  or  doing  you  some  harm?" 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  73 

"Do  they  bite?"  cried  the  girl. 

"How  perfectly  loathsome!"  exclaimed  Halliday. 

"I  don't  know,"  replied  Gerald,  looking  round  the  table. 
"Do  black-beetles  bite? — But  that  isn't  the  point.  Are  you 
afraid  of  their  biting,  or  is  it  a  metaphysical  antipathy?" 

The  girl  was  looking  full  upon  him  all  the  time  with  inchoate 
eyes. 

"Oh,  I  think  they're  beastly,  they're  horrid,"  she  cried. 
"If  I  see  one,  it  gives  me  the  creeps  all  over.  If  one  were 
to  crawl  on  me,  I'm  sure  I  should  die — I'm  sure  I  should." 

"I  hope  not,"  whispered  the  young  Russian. 

"Im  sure  I  should,  Maxim,"  she  asseverated. 

"Then  one  won't  crawl  on  you,"  said  Gerald,  smiling  and 
knowing.     In  some  strange  way  he  understood  her. 

"It's  metaphysical,  as  Gerald  says,"  Birkin  stated. 

There  was  a  little  pause  of  uneasiness. 

"And  are  you  afraid  of  nothing  else,  Pussum?"  asked  the 
yong  Russian,  in  his  quick,  hushed,  elegant  manner. 

"Not  weally,"  she  said.  "I  am  afwaid  of  some  things, 
but  not  weally  the  same.     I'm  not  afwaid  of  blood." 

"Not  afwaid  of  blood!"  exclaimed  a  young  man  with  a 
thick,  pale,  jeering  face,  who  had  just  come  to  the  table  and 
was  drinking  whisky. 

The  Pussum  turned  on  him  a  sulky  look  of  dislike,  low  and 
ugly. 

"Aren't  you  really  afraid  of  blud?"  the  other  persisted,  a 
sneer  all  over  his  face. 

"No,  I'm  not,"  she  retorted. 

"Why,  have  you  ever  seen  blood,  except  in  a  dentist's 
spittoon?"  jeered  the  young  man. 

"I  wasn't  speaking  to  you,"  she  replied  rather  superbly. 

"You  can  answer  me,  can't  you?"  he  said. 

For  reply,  she  suddenly  jabbed  a  knife  across  his  thick, 
pale  hand.     He  started  up  with  a  vulgar  curse. 

"Show's  what  you  are,"  said  the  Pussum  in  contempt. 

"Curse  you,"  said  the  young  man,  standing  by  the  table 
and  looking  down  at  her  with  acrid  malevolence. 

"Stop  that,"  said  Gerald,  in  quick,  instinctive  command. 

The  young  man  stood  looking  down  at  her  with  sardonic 


74  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

contempt,  a  cowed,  self-conscious  look  on  his  thick,  pale  face. 
The  blood  began  to  flow  from  his  hand. 

"Oh,  how  horrible,  take  it  away!"  squealed  Halliday, 
turning  green  and  averting  his  face. 

"D'you  feel  ill?"  asked  the  sardonic  young  man,  in  some 
concern.  "Do  you  feel  ill,  Julius?  Gam,  it's  nothing,  man, 
don't  give  her  the  pleasure  of  letting  her  think  she's  performed 
a  feat — don't  give  her  the  satisfaction,  man — it's  just  what 
she  wants." 

"Oh!"  squealed  Halliday. 

"He's  going  to  cat,  Maxim,"  said  the  Pussum  warningly. 
The  suave  young  Russian  rose  and  took  Halliday  by  the 
arm,  leading  him  away.  Birkin,  white  and  diminished, 
looked  on  as  if  he  were  displeased.  The  wounded,  sardonic 
young  man  moved  away,  ignoring  his  bleeding  hand  in  the 
most  conspicuous  fashion. 

"He's  an  awful  coward,  weally,"  said  the  Pussum  to  Gerald. 
"He's  got  such  an  influence  over  Julius." 

"Who  is  he?"  asked  Gerald. 

"He's  a  Jew,  weally.      I  can't  bear  him." 

"Well,  he's  quite  unimportant.  But  what's  wrong  with 
Halliday?" 

"Julius's  the  most  awful  coward  you've  ever  seen,"  she 
cried.  "He  always  faints  if  I  lift  a  knife — he's  terwified  of 
me." 

"Hm!"  said  Gerald. 

"They're  all  afwaid  of  me,"  she  said.  "Only  the  Jew 
thinks  he's  going  to  show  his  courage.  But  he's  the  biggest 
coward  of  them  all,  weally,  because  he's  afwaid  what  people 
will  think  about  him — and  Julius  doesn't  care  about  that." 

"They've  a  lot  of  valour  between  them,"  said  Gerald  good- 
humouredly. 

The  Pussum  looked  at  him  with  a  slow,  slow  smile.  She 
was  very  handsome,  flushed,  and  confident  in  dreadful  knowl- 
edge.    Two  little  points  of  light  glinted  on  Gerald's  eyes. 

"Why  do  they  call  you  Pussum,  because  you're  like  a 
cat?"  he  asked  her. 

"I  expect  so,"  she  said. 

The  smile  grew  more  intense  on  his  face. 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  75 

"You  are,  rather;   or  a  young,  female  panther." 

"Oh,  God,  Gerald!"  said  Birkin,  in  some  disgust. 

They  both  looked  uneasily  at  Birkin. 

"You're  silent  to-night,  Wupert,"  she  said  to  him,  with  a 
slight  insolence,  being  safe  with  the  other  man. 

Halliday  was  coming  back,  looking  forlorn  and  sick. 

"Pussum,"  he  said,  "I  wish  you  wouldn't  do  these  things. 
Oh!"     He  sank  in  his  chair  with  a  groan. 

"You'd  better  go  home,"  she  said  to  him. 

"I  will  go  home,"  he  said.  "But  won't  you  all  come 
along?  Won't  you  come  round  to  the  flat?"  he  said  to  Ger- 
ald. "I  should  be  so  glad  if  you  would.  Do — that'll  be 
splendid. — I  say?"  He  looked  round  for  a  waiter.  "Get  me 
a  taxi."  Then  he  groaned  again.  "Oh  I  do  feel — perfectly 
ghastly!     Pussum,  you  see  what  you  do  to  me." 

"Then  why  are  you  such  an  idiot?"  she  said  with  sullen 
calm. 

"But  I'm  not  an  idiot!  Oh,  how  awful!  Do  come,  every- 
body, it  will  be  so  splendid.  Pussum,  you  are  coming. — 
What? — Oh,  but  you  must  come,  yes,  you  must.  What? — 
Oh,  my  dear  girl,  don't  make  a  fuss  now,  I  feel  perfectly — 
Oh,  it's  so  ghastly— Ho!— er!     Oh!" 

"You  know  you  can't  drink,"  she  said  to  him,  coldly. 

"I  tell  you  it  isn't  drink — it's  your  disgusting  behaviour, 
Pussum,  it's  nothing  else. — Oh,  how  awful!  Libidnikov,  do 
let  us  go." 

"He's  only  drunk  one  glass — only  one  glass,"  came  the 
rapid,  hushed  voice  of  the  young  Russian. 

They  all  moved  off  to  the  door.  The  girl  kept  near  to 
Gerald,  and  seemed  to  be  at  one  in  her  motion  with  him. 
He  was  aware  of  this,  and  filled  with  demon-satisfaction  that 
this  motion  held  good  for  two.  He  held  her  in  the  hollow  of 
his  will,  and  she  was  soft,  secret,  invisible  in  her  stirring 
there. 

They  crowded  five  of  them  into  the  taxi-cab.  Halliday 
lurched  in  first,  and  dropped  into  his  seat  against  the  other 
window.  Then  the  Pussum  took  her  place,  and  Gerald  sat 
next  to  her.  They  heard  the  young  Russian  giving  orders  to 
the  driver,  then  they  were  all  seated  in  the  dark,  crowded  close 


76  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

together,  Halliday  groaning  and  leaning  out  of  the  window. 
They  felt  the  swift,  muffled  motion  of  the  car. 

The  Pussum  sat  near  to  Gerald,  and  she  seemed  to  become 
soft,  subtly  to  infuse  herself  into  his  bones,  as  if  she  were  pass- 
ing into  him  in  a  black,  electric  flow.  Her  being  suffused  into 
his  veins  like  a  magnetic  darkness,  and  concentrated  at  the 
base  of  his  spine  like  a  fearful  source  of  power.  Meanwhile 
her  voice  sounded  out  reedy  and  nonchalant,  as  she  talked 
indifferently  with  Birkin  and  with  Maxim.  Between  her  and 
Gerald  was  this  silence  and  this  black,  electric  comprehension 
in  the  darkness.  Then  she  found  his  hand,  and  grasped  it  in 
her  own  firm,  small  clasp.  It  was  so  utterly  dark,  and  yet 
such  a  naked  statement,  that  rapid  vibrations  ran  through  his 
blood  and  over  his  brain,  he  was  no  longer  responsible.  Still 
her  voice  rang  on  like  a  bell,  tinged  with  a  tone  of  mockery. 
And  as  she  swung  her  head,  her  fine  mane  of  hair  just  swept 
his  face,  and  all  his  nerves  were  on  fire,  as  with  a  subtle  fric- 
tion of  electricity.  But  the  great  centre  of  his  force  held 
steady,  a  magnificent  pride  to  him,  at  the  base  of  his  spine. 

They  arrived  at  a  large  block  of  buildings,  went  up  in  a 
lift,  and  presently  a  door  was  being  opened  for  them  by  a 
Hindu.  Gerald  looked  in  surprise,  wondering  if  he  were  a 
gentleman,  one  of  the  Hindus  down  from  Oxford,  perhaps. 
But  no,  he  was  the  man-servant. 

"Make  tea,  Hasan,"  said  Halliday. 

"There  is  a  room  for  me?"  said  Birkin. 

To  both  of  which  questions  the  man  grinned,  and  murmured. 

He  made  Gerald  uncertain,  because,  being  tall  and  slender 
and  reticent,  he  looked  like  a  gentleman. 

"Who  is  your  servant?"  he  asked  of  Halliday.  "He  looks 
a  swell." 

"Oh  yes — that's  because  he's  dressed  in  another  man's 
clothes.  He's  anything  but  a  swell,  really.  We  found  him 
in  the  road,  starving.  So  I  took  him  here,  and  another  man 
gave  him  clothes.  He's  anything  but  what  he  seems  to  be — 
his  only  advantage  is  that  he  can't  speak  English  and  can't 
understand  it,  so  he's  perfectly  safe." 

"He's  very  dirty,"  said  the  young  Russian,  swiftly  and 
silently. 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  77 

Directly,  the  man  appeared  in  the  doorway. 

"What  is  it?"  said  Halliday. 

The  Hindu  grinned,  and  murmured  shyly: 

"Want  to  speak  to  master." 

Gerald  watched  curiously.  The  fellow  in  the  doorway  was 
good-looking  and  clean-limbed,  his  bearing  was  calm,  he  looked 
elegant,  aristocratic.  Yet  he  was  half  a  savage,  grinning  fool- 
ishly. Halliday  went  out  into  the  corridor  to  speak  with 
him. 

"What?"  they  heard  his  voice.  "What?  What  do  you 
say?  Tell  me  again.  What?  Want  money?  Want  more 
money?  But  what  do  you  want  money  for?"  There  was  the 
confused  sound  of  the  Hindu's  talking,  then  Halliday  appeared 
in  the  room,  smiling  also  foolishly,  and  saying: 

"He  says  he  wants  money  to  buy  underclothing.  Can  any- 
body lend  me  a  shilling?  Oh  thanks,  a  shilling  will  do  to  buy 
all  the  underclothes  he  wants."  He  took  the  money  from 
Gerald  and  went  out  into  the  passage  again,  where  they  heard 
him  saying,  "You  can't  want  more  money,  you  had  three  and 
six  yesterday.  You  mustn't  ask  for  any  more.  Bring  the 
tea  in  quickly." 

Gerald  looked  round  the  room.  It  was  an  ordinary  Lon- 
don sitting-room  in  a  flat,  evidently  taken  furnished,  rather 
common  and  ugly.  But  there  were  several  negro  statues, 
wood-carvings  from  West  Africa,  strange  and  disturbing,  the 
carved  negroes  looked  almost  like  the  foetus  of  a  human  being. 
One  was  a  woman  sitting  naked  in  a  strange  posture,  and 
looking  tortured,  her  abdomen  stuck  out.  The  young  Rus- 
sian explained  that  she  was  sitting  in  childbirth,  clutching  the 
ends  of  a  band  that  hung  from  her  neck,  one  in  each  hand,  so 
that  she  could  bear  down,  and  help  labour.  The  strange, 
tniiisfixi-il.  rudimentary  face  of  the  woman  again  reminded 
(irruld  of  a  fcetus,  it  was  also  rather  wonderful,  conveying  the 
suggestion  of  the  extreme  of  physical  sensation,  beyond  the 
limits  of  mental  consciousness. 

"Aren't  they  rather  obscene?"  he  asked,  disapproving. 

"I  don't  know,"  murmured  the  other  rapidly.  "I  have 
n.  \  it  tiffined  the  obscene.      I  think  they  are  very  good." 

Gerald  turned  away.     There  were  one  or  two  new  pictures 


78  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

in  the  room,  in  the  Futurist  manner;  there  was  a  large  piano. 
And  these,  with  some  ordinary  London  lodging-house  furni- 
ture of  the  better  sort,  completed  the  whole. 

The  Pussum  had  taken  off  her  hat  and  coat,  and  was  seated 
on  the  sofa.  She  was  evidently  quite  at  home  in  the  house, 
but  uncertain,  suspended.  She  did  not  quite  know  her  posi- 
tion. Her  alliance  for  the  time  being  was  with  Gerald,  and 
she  did  not  know  how  far  this  was  admitted  by  any  of  the 
men.  She  was  considering  how  she  should  carry  off  the  sit- 
uation. She  was  determined  to  have  her  experience.  Now, 
at  this  eleventh  hour,  she  was  not  to  be  baulked.  Her  face 
was  flushed  as  with  battle,  her  eye  was  brooding  but  inevitable. 

The  man  came  in  with  tea  and  a  bottle  of  Kummel.  He 
set  the  tray  on  a  little  table  before  the  couch. 

"Pussum,"  said  Halliday,  "pour  out  the  tea." 

She  did  not  move. 

"Won't  you  do  it?"  Halliday  repeated,  in  a  state  of  nervous 
apprehension. 

"I've  not  come  back  here  as  it  was  before,"  she  said.  "I 
only  came  because  the  others  wanted  me  to,  not  for  your 
sake." 

"My  dear  Pussum,  you  know  you  are  your  own  mistress. 
I  don't  want  you  to  do  anything  but  use  the  flat  for  your  own 
convenience — you  know  it,  I've  told  you  so  many  times." 

She  did  not  reply,  but  silently,  reservedly  reached  for  the 
tea-pot.  They  all  sat  round  and  drank  tea.  Gerald  could 
feel  the  electric  connection  between  him  and  her  so  strongly, 
as  she  sat  there  quiet  and  withheld,  that  another  set  of  con- 
ditions altogether  had  come  to  pass.  Her  silence  and  her  im- 
mutability perplexed  him.  How  was  he  going  to  come  to 
her?  And  yet  he  felt  it  quite  inevitable.  He  trusted  com- 
pletely to  the  current  that  held  them.  His  perplexity  was 
only  superficial,  new  conditions  reigned,  the  old  were  sur- 
passed; here  one  did  as  one  was  possessed  to  do,  no  matter 
what  it  was. 

Birkin  rose.      It  was  nearly  one  o'clock. 

"I'm  going  to  bed,"  he  said.  "Gerald,  I'll  ring  you  up  in 
the  morning  at  your  place — or  you  ring  me  up  here." 

"Right,"  said  Gerald,  and  Birkin  went  out. 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  79 

When  he  was  well  gone,  Halliday  said  in  a  stimulated  voice, 
to  Gerald: 

"I  say,  won't  you  stay  here — oh,  do!" 

"You  can't  put  everybody  up,"  said  Gerald. 

"Oh,  but  I  can,  perfectly — there  are  three  more  beds  be- 
sides mine — do  stay,  won't  you?  Everything  is  quite  ready — 
there  is  always  somebody  here — I  always  put  people  up — I 
love  having  the  house  crowded." 

"But  there  are  only  two  rooms,"  said  the  Pussum,  in  a  cold, 
hostile  voice,  "now  Wupert's  here." 

"I  know  there  are  only  two  rooms,"  said  Halliday,  in  his 
odd,  high  way  of  speaking.      "But  what  does  that  matter?" 

He  was  smiling  rather  foolishly,  and  he  spoke  eagerly,  with 
an  insinuating  determination. 

"Julius  and  I  will  share  one  room,"  said  the  Russian  in  his 
discreet,  precise  voice.  Halliday  and  he  were  friends  from 
Eton. 

"It's  very  simple,"  said  Gerald,  rising  and  pressing  back 
lis  arms,  stretching  himself.  Then  he  went  again  to  look 
it  one  of  the  pictures.  Every  one  of  his  limbs  was  turgid 
with  electric  force,  and  his  back  was  tense  like  a  tiger's,  with 
slumbering  fire.     He  was  very  proud. 

The  Pussum  rose.  She  gave  a  black  look  at  Halliday, 
black  and  deadly,  which  brought  the  rather  foolish,  pleased 
smile  to  that  young  man's  face.  Then  she  went  out  of  the 
room,  with  a  cold  Good-night  to  them  all  generally. 

There  was  a  brief  interval;  they  heard  a  door  close,  then 
Maxim  said,  in  his  refined  voice: 

"That's  all  right." 

He  looked  significantly  at  Gerald,  and  said  again,  with  a 
silent  nod: 

"That's  all  right — you're  all  right." 

Gerald  looked  at  the  smooth,  ruddy,  comely  face,  and  at 
the  strange,  significant  eyes,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  voice  of 
the  young  Russian,  so  small  and  perfect,  sounded  in  the  blood 
rather  than  in  the  air. 

"I'm  all  right  then?"  said  Gerald. 

"Yes!     Yes!     You're  all  right,"  said  the  Russian. 

Halliday  continued  to  smile,  and  to  say  nothing. 


80  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

Suddenly  the  Pussum  appeared  again  in  the  door,  her 
small,  childish  face  looking  sullen  and  vindictive. 

"I  know  you  want  to  catch  me  out,"  came  her  cold,  rather 
resonant  voice.  "But  I  don't  care,  I  don't  care  how  much 
you  catch  me  out." 

She  turned  and  was  gone  again.  She  had  been  wearing  a 
loose  dressing-gown  of  purple  silk,  tied  round  her  waist.  She 
looked  so  small  and  childish  and  vulnerable,  almost  pitiful. 
And  yet  the  black  looks  of  her  eyes  made  Gerald  feel  drowned 
in  some  dreadful,  potent  darkness  that  almost  frightened  him. 

The  men  lit  another  cigarette  and  talked  casually. 


CHAPTER  Vn 

IN  the  morning  Gerald  woke  late.  He  had  slept  heavily. 
Pussum  was  still  asleep,  ■  sleeping  childishly  and  pathetic- 
ally. There  was  something  small  and  curled  up  and 
defenceless  about  her,  that  roused  an  unsatisfied  flame  of 
passion  in  the  young  man's  blood,  a  devouring  avid  pity.  He 
looked  at  her  again.  But  it  would  be  too  cruel  to  wake  her. 
He  subdued  himself,  and  went  away. 

Hearing  voices  coming  from  the  sitting-room,  Halliday 
talking  to  Libidnikov,  he  went  to  the  door  and  glanced  in, 
knowing  he  might  go  about  in  this  bachelor  establishment  in 
his  trousers  and  shirt. 

To  his  surprise  he  saw  the  two  young  men  by  the  fire, 
stark  naked.     Halliday  looked  up,  rather  pleased. 

"Good-morning,"  he  said.  "Oh — did  you  want  towels?" 
And  stark  naked  he  went  out  into  the  hall,  striding  a  strange, 
white  figure  between  the  unliving  furniture.  He  came  back 
with  the  towels,  and  took  his  former  position,  crouching 
seated  before  the  fire  on  the  fender. 

"Don't  you  love  to  feel  the  fire  on  your  skin?"  he  said. 

"It  i*  rather  pleasant,"  said  Gerald. 

"How  perfectly  splendid  it  must  be  to  be  in  a  climate 
where  one  could  do  without  clothing  altogether,"  said  Halliday. 

"Yes,"  said  Gerald,  "if  there  weren't  so  many  things  that 
sting  and  bite." 

"That's  a  disadvantage,"  murmured  Maxim. 

Gerald  looked  at  him,  and  with  a  slight  revulsion  saw  the 
human  animal,  golden  skinned  and  bare,  somehow  humiliating. 
Halliday  was  different.  He  had  a  rather  heavy,  slack,  broken 
beauty,  white  and  firm.  He  was  like  a  Christ  in  a  Pieta. 
The  animal  was  not  there  at  all,  only  the  heavy,  broken 
beauty.  And  Gerald  realised  how  Halliday's  eyes  were  beau- 
tiful too,  so  blue  and  warm  and  confused,  broken  also  in  their 
expression.  The  fire-glow  fell  on  his  heavy,  rather  bowed 
shoulders,  he  sat  slackly  crouched  on  the  fender,  his  face  was 

81 


82  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

uplifted,  degenerate,  perhaps  slightly  disintegrate,  and  yet 
with  a  moving  beauty  of  its  own. 

"Of  course,"  said  Maxim,  "you've  been  in  hot  countries 
where  the  people  go  about  naked." 

"Oh,  really!"  exclaimed  Halliday.      "Where?" 

"South  America — Amazon,"  said  Gerald. 

"Oh,  but  how  perfectly  splendid!  It's  one  of  the  things  I 
want  most  to  do — to  live  from  day  to  day  without  ever  putting 
on  any  sort  of  clothing  whatever.  If  I  could  do  that,  I  should 
feel  I  had  lived." 

"But  why?"  said  Gerald.  "I  can't  see  that  it  makes  so 
much  difference." 

"Oh,  I  think  it  would  be  perfectly  splendid.  I'm  sure 
life  would  be  entirely  another  thing — entirely  different,  and 
perfectly  wonderful." 

"But  why?"  asked  Gerald.      "Why  should  it?" 

"Oh — one  would  feel  things  instead  of  merely  looking  at 
them.  I  should  feel  the  air  move  against  me,  and  feel  the 
things  I  touched,  instead  of  having  only  to  look  at  them. 
I'm  sure  life  is  all  wrong  because  it  has  become  much  too  vis- 
ual— we  can  neither  hear  nor  feel  nor  understand,  we  can  only 
see.     I'm  sure  that  is  entirely  wrong." 

"Yes,  that  is  true,  that  is  true,"  said  the  Russian. 

Gerald  glanced  at  him,  and  saw  him,  his  suave,  golden- 
coloured  body  with  the  black  hair  growing  fine  and  freely, 
like  tendrils,  and  his  limbs  like  smooth  plant-stems.  He  was 
so  healthy  and  well-made,  why  did  he  make  one  ashamed,  why 
did  one  feel  repelled?  Why  should  Gerald  even  dislike  it, 
why  did  it  seem  to  him  to  detract  from  his  own  dignity? 
Was  that  all  a  human  being  amounted  to?  So  uninspired! 
thought  Gerald. 

Birkin  suddenly  appeared  in  the  doorway,  also  in  a  state 
of  nudity,  towel  and  sleeping  suit  over  his  arm.  He  was 
very  narrow  and  white,  and  somehow  apart. 

"There's  the  bath-room  now,  if  you  want  it,"  he  said  gen- 
erally, and  was  going  away  again,  when  Gerald  called: 

"I  say,  Rupert!" 

"What?"  The  single  white  figure  appeared  again,  a 
presence  in  the  room. 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  83 

"What  do  you  think  of  that  figure  there?  I  want  to 
know,"  Gerald  asked. 

Birkin,  white  and  strangely  present,  went  over  to  the 
carved  figure  of  the  negro  woman  in  labour.  Her  nude,  pro- 
tuberant body  crouched  in  a  strange,  clutching  posture,  her 
hands  gripping  the  ends  of  the  band,  above  her  breast. 

"It  is  art,"  said  Birkin. 

"Very  beautiful,  it's  very  beautiful,"  said  the  Russian. 

They  all  drew  near  to  look.  Gerald  looked  at  the  group 
of  naked  men,  the  Russian  golden  and  like  a  water-plant, 
Halliday  tall  and  heavily,  brokenly  beautiful,  Birkin  very 
white  and  immediate,  not  to  be  defined,  as  he  looked  closely 
at  the  carven  woman.  Strangely  elated,  Gerald  also  lifted 
his  eyes  to  the  face  of  the  wooden  figure.  And  his  heart  con- 
tracted. 

He  saw  vividly  with  his  spirit  the  grey,  forward-stretching 
face  of  the  negro  woman,  African  and  tense,  abstracted  in 
utter  physical  stress.  It  was  a  terrible  face,  void,  peaked, 
abstracted  almost  into  meaninglessness  by  the  weight  of 
sensation  beneath.  He  saw  the  Pussum  in  it.  As  in  a  dream, 
he  knew  her. 

"Why  is  it  art?"  Gerald  asked,  shocked,  resentful. 

"It  conveys  a  complete  truth,"  said  Birkin.  "It  contains 
the  whole  truth  of  that  state,  whatever  you  feel  about  it." 

"But  you  can't  call  it  high  art,"  said  Gerald. 

"High!  There  are  centuries  and  hundreds  of  centuries  of 
development  in  a  straight  line,  behind  that  carving;  it  is  an 
awful  pitch  of  culture,  of  a  definite  sort." 

"What  culture?"  Gerald  asked,  in  opposition.  He  hated 
the  sheer  African  thing. 

"Pure  culture  in  sensation,  culture  in  the  physical  con- 
sciousness, really  ultimate  physical  consciousness,  mindless, 
utterly  sensual.     It  is  so  sensual  as  to  be  final,  supreme." 

But  Gerald  resented  it.  He  wanted  to  keep  certain  illu- 
sions, certain  ideas  like  clothing. 

"You  like  the  wrong  things,  Rupert,"  he  said,  "things 
against  yourself." 

"Oh,  I  know,  this  isn't  everything,"  Birkin  replied,  mov- 
ing away. 


84  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

When  Gerald  went  back  to  his  room  from  the  bath,  he  also 
carried  his  clothes.  It  seemed  bad  form  in  this  house,  not  to 
go  about  naked.  And  after  all,  it  was  rather  nice,  there  was 
a  real  simplicity.  Still,  it  was  rather  funny,  everybody  being 
so  deliberately  nude. 

The  Pussum  lay  in  her  bed,  motionless,  her  round,  dark 
eyes,  like  black,  unhappy  pools.  He  could  only  see  the 
black,  bottomless  pools  of  her  eyes.  Perhaps  she  suffered. 
The  sensation  of  her  inchoate  suffering  roused  the  old  sharp 
flame  in  him,  a  mordant  pity,  a  passion  almost  of  cruelty. 

"You  are  awake  now,"  he  said  to  her. 

"What  time  is  it?"  came  her  muted  voice. 

She  seemed  to  flow  back,  almost  like  liquid,  from  his 
approach,  to  sink  helplessly  away  from  him.  Her  inchoate 
look  of  a  violated  slave,  whose  fulfilment  lies  in  her  further 
and  further  violation,  made  his  nerves  quiver  with  acutely 
desirable  sensation.  After  all,  his  was  the  only  will,  she  was 
the  passive  substance  of  his  will.  He  tingled  with  the  sub- 
tle, biting  sensation.  And  then  he  knew,  he  must  go  away 
from  her,  there  must  be  pure  separation  between  them. 

It  was  a  quiet  and  ordinary  breakfast,  the  four  men  all 
looking  very  clean  and  bathed.  Gerald  and  the  Russian  were 
both  correct  and  comme  il  faut  in  appearance  and  manner, 
Birkin  was  gaunt  and  sick,  and  looked  a  failure  in  his  attempt 
to  be  a  properly  dressed  man,  like  Gerald  and  Maxim.  Halli- 
day  wore  tweeds  and  a  green  flannel  shirt,  and  a  rag  of  a  tie, 
which  was  just  right  for  him.  The  Hindu  brought  in  a  great 
deal  of  soft  toast,  and  looked  exactly  the  same  as  he  had 
looked  the  night  before,  statically  the  same. 

At  the  end  of  the  breakfast  the  Pussum  appeared,  in  a 
purple  silk  wrap  with  a  shimmering  sash.  She  had  recovered 
herself  somewhat,  but  was  mute  and  lifeless  still.  It  was  a 
torment  to  her  when  anybody  spoke  to  her.  Her  face  was 
like  a  small,  fine  mask,  sinister  too,  masked  with  unwilling 
suffering.  It  was  almost  midday.  Gerald  rose  and  went 
away  to  his  business,  glad  to  get  out.  But  he  had  not  fin- 
ished. He  was  coming  back  again  at  evening,  they  were  all 
dining  together,  and  he  had  booked  seats  for  the  party,  ex- 
cepting Birkin,  at  a  music-hall. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  85 

At  night  they  came  back  to  the  flat  very  late  again,  again 
flushed  with  drink.  Again  the  man-servant — who  invariably 
disappeared  between  the  hours  of  ten  and  twelve  at  night — 
came  in  silently  and  inscrutably  with  tea,  bending  in  a  slow, 
strange,  leopard-like  fashion  to  put  the  tray  softly  on  the 
table.  His  face  was  immutable,  aristocratic-looking,  tinged 
slightly  with  grey  under  the  skin;  he  was  young  and  good- 
looking.  But  Birkin  felt  a  slight  sickness,  looking  at  him, 
and  feeling  the  slight  greyness  as  an  ash  or  a  corruption,  in 
the  aristocratic  inscrutability  of  expression  a  nauseating,  bes- 
tial stupidity. 

Again  they  talked  cordially  and  rousedly  together.  But 
already  a  certain  friability  was  coming  over  the  party,  Birkin 
was  mad  with  irritation,  Halliday  was  turning  in  an  insane 
hatred  against  Gerald,  the  Pussum  was  becoming  hard  and 
cold,  like  a  flint  knife,  and  Halliday  was  laying  himself  out 
to  her.  And  her  intention,  ultimately,  was  to  capture 
Halliday,  to  have  complete  power  over  him. 

In  the  morning  they  all  stalked  and  lounged  about  again. 
But  Gerald  could  feel  a  strange  hostility  to  himself,  in  the  air. 
It  roused  his  obstinacy,  and  he  stood  up  against  it.  He  hung 
on  for  two  more  days.  The  result  was  a  nasty  and  insane 
scene  with  Halliday  on  the  fourth  evening.  Halliday  turned 
with  absurd  animosity,  upon  Gerald,  in  the  Cafe.  There  was 
a  row.  Gerald  was  on  the  point  of  knocking-in  Halliday *s 
face;  when  he  was  filled  with  sudden  disgust  and  indifference, 
and  he  went  away,  leaving  Halliday  in  a  foolish  state  of 
floating  triumph,  the  Pussum  hard  and  established,  and 
Maxim  standing  clear.  Birkin  was  absent;  he  had  gone  out 
of  town  again. 

Gerald  was  piqued  because  he  had  left  without  giving  the 
l'li^-urn  money.  It  was  true,  she  did  not  care  whether  he 
gave  her  money  or  not,  and  he  knew  it.  But  she  would  have 
h.tti  glad  of  ten  pounds,  and  he  would  have  been  very  glad 
to  give  them  to  her.  Now  he  felt  in  a  false  position.  He 
w.-nt  away  chewing  his  lips  to  get  at  the  ends  of  his  short- 
clipped  moustache.  He  knew  the  Pussum  was  merely  glad 
to  be  rid  of  him.  She  had  got  her  Halliday,  whom  she  wanted. 
She  wanted  him  completely  in  her  power.      Then  she  would 


86  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

marry  him.  She  wanted  to  marry  him.  She  had  set  her  will 
on  marrying  Halliday.  She  never  wanted  to  hear  of  Gerald 
again;  unless,  perhaps,  she  were  in  difficulty;  because  after 
all,  Gerald  was  what  she  called  a  man,  and  these  others, 
Halliday,  Libidnikov,  Birkin,  the  whole  Bohemian  set,  they 
were  only  half  men.  But  it  was  half  men  she  could  deal 
with.  She  felt  sure  of  herself  with  them.  The  real  men, 
like  Gerald,  put  her  in  her  place  too  much. 

Still,  she  respected  Gerald,  she  really  respected  him.  She 
had  managed  to  get  his  address,  so  that  she  could  appeal  to 
him  in  time  of  distress.  She  knew  he  wanted  to  give  her 
money.  She  would  perhaps  write  to  him  on  that  inevitable 
rainy  day. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

BREADALBY  was  a  Georgian  house  with  Corinthian  pil- 
lars, standing  among  the  softer,  greener  hills  of  Derby- 
shire, not  far  from  Cromford.  In  front,  it  looked  over 
a  lawn,  over  a  few  trees,  down  to  a  string  of  fish-ponds  in  the 
hollow  of  the  silent  park.  At  the  back  were  trees,  among 
which  were  to  be  found  the  stables,  and  the  big  kitchen  gar- 
den, behind  which  was  a  wood. 

It  was  a  very  quiet  place,  some  miles  from  the  high-road, 
back  from  the  Derwent  Valley,  outside  the  show  scenery. 
Silent  and  forsaken,  the  golden  stucco  showed  between  the 
trees,  the  house-front  looked  down  the  park,  unchanged  and 
unchanging. 

Of  late,  however,  Hermione  had  lived  a  good  deal  at  the 
house.  She  had  turned  away  from  London,  away  from 
Oxford,  towards  the  silence  of  the  country.  Her  father  was 
mostly  absent,  abroad,  she  was  either  alone  in  the  house, 
with  her  visitors,  of  whom  there  were  always  several,  or  she 
had  with  her  her  brother,  a  bachelor,  and  a  Liberal  member 
of  Parliament.  He  always  came  down  when  the  House  was 
not  sitting,  seemed  always  to  be  present  in  Breadalby,  al- 
though he  was  most  conscientious  in  his  attendance  to  duty. 

The  summer  was  just  coming  in  when  Ursula  and  Gudrun 
went  to  stay  the  second  time  with  Hermione.  Coming  along 
in  the  car,  after  they  had  entered  the  park,  they  looked  across 
the  dip,  where  the  fish-ponds  lay  in  silence,  at  the  pillared 
front  of  the  house,  sunny  and  small  like  an  English  drawing 
of  the  old  school,  on  the  brow  of  the  green  hill,  against  the 
trees.  There  were  small  figures  on  the  green  lawn,  women 
in  lavender  and  yellow  moving  to  the  shade  of  the  enormous, 
beautifully  balanced  cedar  tree. 

"Isn't  it  complete!"  said  Gudrun.  "It  is  as  final  as  an 
old  aquatint."  She  spoke  with  some  resentment  in  her  voice, 
as  if  she  were  captivated  unwillingly,  as  if  she  must  admire 
against  her  will. 

87 


88  WOMEN  IN   LOVE 

"Do  you  love  it?"  asked  Ursula. 

"I  don't  love  it,  but  in  its  way,  I  think  it  is  quite  com- 
plete." 

The  motor-car  ran  down  the  hill  and  up  again  in  one  breath, 
and  they  were  curving  to  the  side  door.  A  parlour-maid 
appeared,  and  then  Hermione,  coming  forward  with  her  pale 
face  lifted,  and  her  hands  outstretched,  advancing  straight  to 
the  new-comers,  her  voice  singing: 

"Here  you  are — I'm  so  glad  to  see  you — "  she  kissed 
Gudrun. — "So  glad  to  see  you — "  she  kissed  Ursula  and  re- 
mained with  her  arm  round  her.     "Are  you  very  tired?" 

"Not  at  all  tired,"  said  Ursula. 

"Are  you  tired,  Gudrun?" 

"Not  at  all,  thanks,"  said  Gudrun. 

"No — ,"  drawled  Hermione.  And  she  stood  and  looked  at 
them.  The  two  girls  were  embarrassed  because  she  would 
not  move  into  the  house,  but  must  have  her  little  scene  of 
welcome  there  on  the  path.      The  servants  waited. 

"Come  in,"  said  Hermione  at  last,  having  fully  taken  in 
the  pair  of  them.  Gudrun  was  the  more  beautiful  and  at- 
tractive, she  had  decided  again,  Ursula  was  more  physical, 
more  womanly.  She  admired  Gudrun's  dress  more.  It  was 
of  green  poplin,  with  a  loose  coat  above  it,  of  broad,  dark- 
green  and  dark-brown  stripes.  The  hat  was  of  a  pale,  green- 
ish straw,  the  colour  of  new  hay,  and  it  had  a  plaited  ribbon 
of  black  and  orange,  the  stockings  were  dark  green,  the  shoes 
black.  It  was  a  good  get-up,  at  once  fashionable  and  indi- 
vidual. Ursula,  in  dark  blue,  was  more  ordinary,  though  she 
also  looked  well. 

Hermione  herself  wore  a  dress  of  prune-coloured  silk,  with 
coral  beads  and  coral-coloured  stockings.  But  her  dress  was 
both  shabby  and  soiled,  even  rather  dirty. 

"You  would  like  to  see  your  rooms  now,  wouldn't  you? 
Yes.     We  will  go  up  now,  shall  we?" 

Ursula  was  glad  when  she  could  be  left  alone  in  her  room. 
Hermione  lingered  so  long,  made  such  a  stress  on  one.  She 
stood  so  near  to  one,  pressing  herself  near  upon  one,  in  a 
way  that  was  most  embarrassing  and  oppressive.  She  seemed 
to  hinder  one's  workings. 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  89 

Lunch  was  served  on  the  lawn,  under  the  great  tree,  whose 
thick,  blackish  boughs  came  down  close  to  the  grass.  There 
were  present  a  young  Italian  woman,  slight  and  fashionable, 
a  young,  athletic-looking  Miss  Bradley,  a  learned,  dry  Baronet 
of  fifty,  who  was  always  making  witticisms  and  laughing  at 
them  heartily  in  a  harsh,  horse-laugh,  there  was  Rupert  Bir- 
kin,  and  then  a  woman  secretary,  a  Fraulein  Marz,  young  and 
slim  and  pretty. 

The  food  was  very  good,  that  was  one  thing.  Gudrun, 
critical  of  everything,  gave  it  her  full  approval.  Ursula  loved 
the  situation,  the  white  table  by  the  cedar  tree,  the  scent  of 
new  sunshine,  the  little  vision  of  the  leafy  park,  with  far-off 
deer  feeding  peacefully.  There  seemed  a  magic  circle  drawn 
about  the  place,  shutting  out  the  present,  enclosing  the  de- 
lightful, precious  past,  trees  and  deer  and  silence,  like  a 
dream. 

But  in  spirit  she  was  unhappy.  The  talk  went  on  like  a 
rattle  of  small  artillery,  always  slightly  sententious,  with  a 
sententiousness  that  was  only  emphasized  by  the  continual 
crackling  of  a  witticism,  the  continual  spatter  of  verbal  jest, 
designed  to  give  a  tone  of  flippancy  to  a  stream  of  conversa- 
tion that  was  all  critical  and  general,  a  canal  of  conversation 
rather  than  a  stream. 

The  attitude  was  mental  and  very  wearying.  Only  the 
elderly  sociologist,  whose  mental  fibre  was  so  tough  as  to  be 
insentient,  seemed  to  be  thoroughly  happy.  Birkin  was 
down  in  the  mouth.  Hermione  appeared,  with  amazing  per- 
sistence, to  wish  to  ridicule  him  and  make  him  look  igno- 
minious in  the  eyes  of  everybody.  And  it  was  surprising, 
how  she  seemed  to  succeed,  how  helpless  he  seemed  against 
her.  He  looked  completely  insignificant.  Ursula  and  Gud- 
run, both  very  unused,  were  mostly  silent,  listening  to  the 
slow,  rhapsodic  sing-song  of  Hermione,  or  the  verbal  sallies 
of  Sir  Joshua,  or  the  prattle  of  Fraulein,  or  the  responses  of 
tin-  other  two  women. 

Luncheon  was  over,  coffee  was  brought  out  on  the  grass, 
the  party  left  the  table  and  sat  about  in  lounge-chairs,  in  the 
shade  or  in  the  sunshine  as  they  wished.  Fraulein  departed 
into  the  house,  Hermione  took  up  her  embroidery,  the  little 


90  WOMEN  IN   LOVE 

countess  took  a  book,  Miss  Bradley  was  weaving  a  basket  out 
of  fine  grass,  and  there  they  all  were  on  the  lawn  in  the  early 
summer  afternoon,  working  leisurely  and  spattering  with  half- 
intellectual,  deliberate  talk. 

Suddenly  there  was  the  sound  of  the  brakes  and  the  shut- 
ting off  of  a  motor-car. 

"There's  Salsie!"  sang  Hermione,  in  her  slow,  amusing 
sing-song.  And  laying  down  her  work,  she  rose  slowly,  and 
slowly  passed  over  the  lawn,  round  the  bushes,  out  of  sight. 

"Who  is  it?"  asked  Gudrun. 

"Mr..  Roddice — Miss  Roddice's  brother — at  least,  I  sup- 
pose it's  he,"  said  Sir  Joshua. 

"Salsie,  yes,  it  is  her  brother,"  said  the  little  contessa,  lift- 
ing her  head  for  a  moment  from  her  book,  and  speaking  as  if 
to  give  information,  in  her  slightly  deepened,  guttural  English. 

They  all  waited.  And  then  round  the  bushes  came  the 
tall  form  of  Alexander  Roddice,  striding  romantically  like  a 
Meredith  hero  who  remembers  Disraeli.  He  was  cordial  with 
everybody;  he  was  at  once  a  host,  with  an  easy,  off-hand 
hospitality  that  he  had  learned  for  Hermione's  friends.  He 
had  just  come  down  from  London,  from  the  House.  At  once 
the  atmosphere  of  the  House  of  Commons  made  itself  felt 
over  the  lawn;  the  Home  Secretary  had  said  such  and  such 
a  thing,  and  he,  Roddice,  on  the  other  hand,  thought  such 
and  such  a  thing,  and  had  said  so-and-so  to  the  P.  M. 

Now  Hermione  came  round  the  bushes  with  Gerald  Crich. 
He  had  come  along  with  Alexander.  Gerald  was  presented 
to  everybody,  was  kept  by  Hermione  for  a  few  moments  in 
full  view,  then  he  was  led  away,  still  by  Hermione.  He  was 
evidently  her  guest  of  the  moment. 

There  had  been  a  split  in  the  Cabinet;  the  minister  for 
Education  had  resigned  owing  to  adverse  criticism.  This 
started  a  conversation  on  education. 

"Of  course,"  said  Hermione,  lifting  her  face  like  a  rhap- 
sodist,  "there  can  be  no  reason,  no  excuse  for  education,  except 
the  joy  and  beauty  of  knowledge  in  itself."  She  seemed  to 
rumble  and  ruminate  with  subterranean  thoughts  for  a  min- 
ute, then  she  proceeded:  "Vocational  education  isn't  educa- 
tion, it  is  the  close  of  education." 


WOMEN  LN  LOVE  91 

Gerald,  on  the  brink  of  discussion,  sniffed  the  air  with 
delight  and  prepared  for  action. 

"Not  necessarily,"  he  said.  "But  isn't  education  really 
like  gymnastics,  isn't  the  end  of  education  the  production  of 
a  well-trained,  vigourous,  energetic  mind?" 

"Just  as  athletics  produce  a  healthy  body,  ready  for  any- 
thing," cried  Miss  Bradley,  in  hearty  accord. 

Gudrun  looked  at  her  in  silent  loathing. 

"Well — ,"  rumbled  Hermione,  "I  don't  know.  To  me  the 
pleasure  of  knowing  is  so  great,  so  wonderful — nothing  has 
meant  so  much  to  me  in  all  life,  as  certain  knowledge — no,  I 
am  sure — nothing." 

"What  knowledge,  for  example,  Hermione?"  asked  Alex- 
ander. 

Hermione  lifted  her  face  and  rumbled — 

"M — m — m — I  don't  know.  .  .  .  But  one  thing  was  the 
stars,  when  I  really  understood  something  about  the  stars. 
One  feels  so  uplifted,  so  unbounded  ..." 

Birkin  looked  at  her  in  a  white  fury. 

"What  do  you  want  to  feel  unbounded  for?"  he  said  sar- 
castically.    "You  don't  want  to  be  unbounded." 

Hermione  recoiled  in  offence. 

"Yes,  but  one  does  have  that  limitless  feeling,"  said  Ger- 
ald. "It's  like  getting  on  top  of  the  mountain  and  seeing  the 
Pacific." 

"Silent  upon  a  peak  in  Dariayn,"  murmured  the  Italian, 
lifting  her  face  for  a  moment  from  her  book. 

"Not  necessarily  in  Darien,"  said  Gerald,  while  Ursula  be- 
gan to  laugh. 

Hermione  waited  for  the  dust  to  settle,  and  then  she  said, 
untouched : 

"Yes,  it  is  the  greatest  thing  in  life — to  know.  It  is  really 
to  be  happy,  to  be  free." 

"Knowledge  is,  of  course,  liberty,"  said  Malleson. 

"In  compressed  tabloids,"  said  Birkin,  looking  at  the  dry, 
stiff  little  body  of  the  Baronet.  Immediately  Gudrun  saw  the 
famous  sociologist  as  a  flat  bottle,  containing  tabloids  of  com- 
pressed liberty.  That  pleased  her.  Sir  Joshua  was  labelled 
and  placed  forever  in  her  mind. 


92  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

"What  does  that  mean,  Rupert?"  sang  Hermione,  in  a  calm 
snub. 

"You  can  only  have  knowledge,  strictly,"  he  replied,  "of 
things  concluded,  in  the  past.  It's  like  bottling  the  liberty 
of  last  summer  in  the  bottled  gooseberries." 

"Can  one  have  knowledge  only  of  the  past?"  asked  the 
Baronet,  pointedly.  "Could  we  call  our  knowledge  of  the 
laws  of  gravitation  for  instance,  knowledge  of  the  past?" 

"Yes,"  said  Birkin. 

"There  is  a  most  beautiful  thing  in  my  book,"  suddenly 
piped  the  little  Italian  woman.  "It  says  the  man  came  to 
the  door  and  threw  his  eyes  down  the  street." 

There  was  a  general  laugh  in  the  company.  Miss  Bradley 
went  and  looked  over  the  shoulder  of  the  contessa. 

"See!"  said  the  contessa. 

"Bazarov  came  to  the  door  and  threw  his  eyes  hurriedly 
down  the  street,"  she  read. 

Again  there  was  a  loud  laugh,  the  most  startling  of  which 
was  the  Baronet's,  which  rattled  out  like  a  clatter  of  falling 
stones. 

"What  is  the  book?"  asked  Alexander,  promptly. 

"  'Fathers  and  Sons,'  by  Turgenev,"  said  the  little  for- 
eigner, pronouncing  every  syllable  distinctly.  She  looked  at 
the  cover,  to  verify  herself. 

"An  old  American  edition,"  said  Birkin. 

"Ha! — of  course — translated  from  the  French,"  said 
Alexander,  with  a  fine  declamatory  voice.  "Bazarov  ouvra 
la  porte  et  jeta  les  yeux  dans  la  rue." 

He  looked  brightly  round  the  company. 

"I  wonder  what  the  'hurriedly'  was,"  said  Ursula. 

They  all  began  to  guess. 

And  then,  to  the  amazement  of  everybody,  the  maid  came 
hurrying  with  a  large  tea-tray.  The  afternoon  had  passed  so 
swiftly. 

After  tea,  they  were  all  gathered  for  a  walk. 

"Would  you  like  to  come  for  a  walk?"  said  Hermione  to 
each  of  them,  one  by  one.  And  they  all  said  yes,  feeling 
somehow  like  prisoners  marshalled  for  exercise.  Birkin  only 
refused. 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  93 

"Will  you  come  for  a  walk,  Rupert?" 

"No,  Hermione." 

"But  are  you  sure?" 

"Quite  sure."      There  was  a  second's  hesitation. 

"And  why  not?"  sang  Hermione's  question.  It  made  her 
blood  run  sharp,  to  be  thwarted  in  even  so  trifling  a  matter. 
She  intended  them  all  to  walk  with  her  in  the  park. 

"Because  I  don't  like  trooping  off  in  a  gang,"  he  said. 

Her  voice  rumbled  in  her  throat  for  a  moment.  Then  she 
said,  with  a  curious  stray  calm: 

"Then  we'll  leave  a  little  boy  behind,  if  he's  sulky." 

And  she  looked  really  gay,  while  she  insulted  him.  But 
it  merely  made  him  stiff. 

She  trailed  off  to  the  rest  of  the  company,  only  turning  to 
wave  her  handkerchief  to  him,  and  to  chuckle  with  laughter, 
singing  out: 

"Good-bye,  good-bye  little  boy." 

"Good-bye,  impudent  hag,"  he  said  to  himself. 

They  all  went  through  the  park.  Hermione  wanted  to 
show  them  the  wild  daffodils  on  a  little  slope.  "This  way, 
this  way,"  sang  her  leisurely  voice  at  intervals.  And  they 
had  all  to  come  this  way.  The  daffodils  were  pretty,  but 
who  could  see  them?  Ursula  was  stiff  all  over  with  resent- 
ment by  this  time,  resentment  of  the  whole  atmosphere. 
Gudrun,  mocking  and  objective,  watched  and  registered  every- 
thing. 

They  looked  at  the  shy  deer,  and  Hermione  talked  to  the 
stag,  as  if  he  too  were  a  boy  she  wanted  to  wheedle  and  fondle. 
He  was  male,  so  she  must  exert  some  kind  of  power  over  him. 
They  trailed  home  by  the  fish-ponds,  and  Hermione  told 
them  about  the  quarrel  of  two  male  swans,  who  had  striven 
for  the  love  of  the  one  lady.  She  chuckled  and  laughed  as 
she  told  how  the  ousted  lover  had  sat  with  his  head  buried 
under  his  wing,  on  the  gravel. 

When  they  arrived  back  at  the  house,  Hermione  stood  on 
the  lawn  and  sang  out,  in  a  strange,  small,  high  voice  that 
carried  very  far: 

"Rupert!  Rupert!"  The  first  syllable  was  high  and 
slow,  the  second  dropped  down.      "Roo-o-opert." 


94  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

But  there  was  no  answer.     A  maid  appeared. 

"Where  is  Mr.  Birkin,  Alice?"  asked  the  mild,  straying 
voice  of  Hermione.  But  under  the  straying  voice,  what  a 
persistent,  almost  insane  will! 

"I  think  he's  in  his  room,  madam." 

"Is  he?" 

Hermione  went  slowly  up  the  stairs,  along  the  corridor, 
singing  out  in  her  high,  small  call: 

"Ru-oo-pert!     Ru-oo-pert!" 

She  came  to  his  door,  and  tapped,  still  crying:  "Roo-pert." 

"Yes,"  sounded  his  voice  at  last. 

"What  are  you  doing?" 

The  question  was  mild  and  curious. 

There  was  no  answer.      Then  he  opened  the  door. 

"We've  come  back,"  said  Hermione.  "The  daffodils  are 
so  beautiful." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I've  seen  them." 

She  looked  at  him  with  her  long,  slow,  impassive  look, 
along  her  cheeks. 

"Have  you?"  she  echoed.  And  she  remained  looking  at 
him.  She  was  stimulated  above  all  things  by  this  conflict 
with  him,  when  he  was  like  a  sulky  boy,  helpless,  and  she 
had  him  safely  at  Breadalby.  But  underneath  she  knew  the 
split  was  coming,  and  her  hatred  of  him  was  subconscious  and 
intense. 

"What  were  you  doing?"  she  reiterated,  in  her  mild,  in- 
different tone.  He  did  not  answer,  and  she  made  her  way, 
almost  unconsciously  into  his  room.  He  had  taken  a  Chinese 
drawing  of  geese  from  the  boudoir,  and  was  copying  it,  with 
much  skill  and  vividness. 

"You  are  copying  the  drawing,"  she  said,  standing  near 
the  table,  and  looking  down  at  his  work.  "Yes.  How 
beautifully  you  do  it!     You  like  it  very  much,  don't  you?" 

"It's  a  marvellous  drawing,"  he  said. 

"Is  it?  I'm  so  glad  you  like  it,  because  I've  always  been 
fond  of  it. — The  Chinese  ambassador  gave  it  me." 

"I  know,"  he  said. 

"But  why  do  you  copy  it?"  she  asked,  casual  and  sing- 
song.    "Why  not  do  something  original?" 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  95 

"I  want  to  know  it,"  he  replied.  "One  gets  more  of 
China,  copying  this  picture,  than  reading  all  the  books." 

"And  what  do  you  get?" 

She  was  at  once  roused,  she  laid  as  it  were  violent  hands 
on  him,  to  extract  his  secrets  from  him.  She  must  know.  It 
was  a  dreadful  tyranny,  an  obsession  in  her,  to  know  all  he 
knew.  For  some  time  he  was  silent,  hating  to  answer  her. 
Then,  compelled,  he  began: 

"I  know  what  centres  they  live  from — what  they  perceive 
and  feel — the  hot,  stinging  centrality  of  a  goose  in  the  flux 
of  cold  water  and  mud — the  curious  bitter  stinging  heat  of  a 
goose's  blood,  entering  their  own  blood  like  an  inoculation  of 
corruptive  fire — fire  of  the  cold-burning  mud — the  lotus 
mystery." 

Hermione  looked  at  him  along  her  narrow,  pallid  cheeks. 
Her  eyes  were  strange  and  drugged,  heavy  under  their  heavy, 
dropping  lids.  Her  thin  bosom  shrugged  convulsively.  He 
stared  back  at  her,  devilish  and  unchanging.  With  another 
strange,  sick  convulsion,  she  turned  away,  as  if  she  were 
sick,  could  feel  dissolution  setting-in  in  her  body.  For  with 
her  mind  she  was  unable  to  attend  to  his  words,  he  caught 
licr.  as  it  were,  beneath  all  her  defences,  and  destroyed  her 
with  some  insidious  occult  potency. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  as  if  she  did  not  know  what  she  were 
saying.  "Yes,"  and  she  swallowed,  and  tried  to  regain  her 
mind.  But  she  could  not,  she  was  witless,  decentralised. 
Use  all  her  will  as  she  might,  she  could  not  recover.  She 
suffered  the  ghastliness  of  dissolution,  broken  and  gone  in  a 
horrible  corruption.  And  he  stood  and  looked  at  her  un- 
moved. She  strayed  out,  pallid  and  preyed-upon  like  a 
ghost,  like  one  attacked  by  the  tomb-influences  which  dog 
us.  And  she  was  gone  like  a  corpse,  that  has  no  presence, 
no  connection.     He  remained  hard  and  vindictive. 

Hermione  came  down  to  dinner  strange  and  sepulchral,  her 
eyes  heavy  and  full  of  sepulchral  darkness,  strength.  She  had 
put  on  a  dress  of  sliff,  old  greenish  brocade,  that  fitted  tight 
and  made  her  look  tall  and  rather  terrible,  ghastly.  In  the 
gay  light  of  the  drawing-room  she  was  uncanny  and  oppres- 
sive.    But  seated  in  the  half-light  of  the  dining-room,  sitting 


96  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

stiffly  before  the  shaded  candles  on  the  table,  she  seemed  a 
power,  a  presence.  She  listened  and  attended  with  a  drugged 
attention. 

The  party  was  gay  and  extravagant  in  appearance,  every- 
body had  put  on  evening  dress  except  Birkin  and  Joshua 
Malleson.  The  little  Italian  contessa  wore  a  dress  of  tissue 
of  orange  and  gold  and  black  velvet  in  soft  wide  stripes, 
Gudrun  was  emerald  green  with  strange  net-work,  Ursula  was 
in  yellow  with  dull  silver  veiling,  Miss  Bradley  was  of  grey, 
crimson  and  jet,  Fraulein  Marz  wore  pale  blue.  It  gave 
Hermione  a  sudden  convulsive  sensation  of  pleasure,  to  see 
these  rich  colours  under  the  candle-light.  She  was  aware  of 
the  talk  going  on,  ceaselessly,  Joshua's  voice  dominating;  of 
the  ceaseless  pitter-patter  of  women's  light  laughter  and  re- 
sponses; of  the  brilliant  colours  and  the  white  table  and  the 
shadow  above  and  below;  and  she  seemed  in  a  swoon  of 
gratification,  convulsed  with  pleasure,  and  yet  sick,  like  a 
revenant.  She  took  very  little  part  in  the  conversation,  yet 
she  heard  it  all,  it  was  all  hers. 

They  all  went  together  into  the  drawing-room,  as  if  they 
were  one  family,  easily,  without  any  attention  to  ceremony. 
Fraulein  handed  the  coffee,  everybody  smoked  cigarettes,  or 
else  long  warden  pipes  of  white  clay,  of  which  a  sheaf  was 
provided. 

"Will  you  smoke? — cigarettes  or  pipe?"  asked  Fraulein 
prettily.  There  was  a  circle  of  people,  Sir  Joshua  with  his 
eighteenth-century  appearance,  Gerald  the  amused,  handsome 
young  Englishman,  Alexander  tall  and  the  handsome  politi- 
cian, democratic  and  lucid,  Hermione  strange  like  a  long 
Cassandra,  and  the  women  lurid  with  colour,  all  dutifully 
.smoking  their  long  white  pipes,  and  sitting  in  a  half -moon  in 
the  comfortable,  soft-lighted  drawing-room,  round  the  logs 
that  flickered  on  the  marble  hearth. 

The  talk  was  very  often  political  or  sociological,  and  inter- 
esting, curiously  anarchistic.  There  was  an  accumulation  of 
powerful  force  in  the  room,  powerful  and  destructive.  Every- 
thing seemed  to  be  thrown  into  the  melting-pot,  and  it  seemed 
to  Ursula  they  were  all  witches,  helping  the  pot  to  bubble. 
There  was  an  elation  and  a  satisfaction  in  it  all,  but  it  was 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  97 

cruelly  exhausting  for  the  new-comers,  this  ruthless  mental 
pressure,  this  powerful,  consuming,  destructive  mentality  that 
emanated  from  Joshua  and  Hermione  and  Birkin  and  domi- 
nated the  rest. 

But  a  sickness,  a  fearful  nausea  gathered  possession  of 
Hermione.  There  was  a  lull  in  the  talk,  as  it  was  arrested 
by  her  unconscious  but  all  poweiful  will. 

"Salsie,  won't  you  play  something?"  said  Hermione,  break- 
ing off  completely.  "Won't  somebody  dance?  Gudrun,  you 
will  dance,  won't  you?  I  wish  you  would.  Anche  tu,  Pales- 
tra, ballerai? — si,  per  piacere.     You  too,  Ursula." 

Hermione  rose  and  slowly  pulled  the  gold-embroidered  band 
that  hung  by  the  mantel,  clinging  to  it  for  a  moment,  then 
releasing  it  suddenly.  Like  a  priestess  she  looked,  uncon- 
scious, sunk  in  a  heavy  half-trance. 

A  servant  came,  and  soon  reappeared  with  armfuls  of  silk 
robes  and  shawls  and  scarves,  mostly  oriental,  things  that 
Hermione,  with  her  love  for  beautiful  extravagant  dress,  had 
collected  gradually. 

"The  three  women  will  dance  together,"  she  said. 

"What  shall  it  be?"  asked  Alexander,  rising  briskly. 

"Virgins  of  the  Rocks,"  said  the  contessa  at  once. 

"They  are  so  languid,"  said  Ursula. 

"The  three  witches  from  Macbeth,"  suggested  Fraulein 
usefully.  It  was  finally  decided  to  do  Naomi  and  Ruth  and 
Orpah.  Uisula  was  Naomi,  Gudrun  was  Ruth,  the  contessa 
was  Orpah.  The  idea  was  to  make  a  little  ballet,  in  the  style 
of  the  Russian  Ballet  of  Pavlova  and  Nijinsky. 

The  contessa  was  ready  first,  Alexander  went  to  the  piano, 
a  space  was  cleared.  Orpah,  in  beautiful  oriental  clothes, 
began  slowly  to  dance  the  death  of  her  husband.  Then 
Ruth  came,  and  they  wept  together,  and  lamented,  then  Naomi 
came  to  comfort  them.  It  was  all  done  in  dumb  show,  the 
women  danced  their  emotion  in  gesture  and  motion.  The 
little  drama  went  on  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 

Ursula  was  beautiful  as  Naomi.  All  her  men  were  dead, 
it  r.-mained  to  her  only  to  stand  alone  in  indomitable  asser- 
tion, demanding  nothing.  Ruth,  woman-loving,  loved  her. 
Orpah,  a  vivid,  sensational,  subtle  widow,  would  go  back  to 


98  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

the  former  life,  a  repetition.  The  inter-play  between  the 
women  was  real  and  rather  frightening.  It  was  strange  to 
see  how  Gudrun  clung  with  heavy,  desperate  passion  to  Ursula, 
yet  smiled  with  subtle  malevolence  against  her,  how  Ursula 
accepted  silently,  unable  to  provide  any  more  either  for  her- 
self or  for  the  other,  but  dangerous  and  indomitable,  refuting 
her  grief. 

Hermione  loved  to  watch.  She  could  see  the  contessa's 
rapid,  stoat-like  sensationalism,  Gudrun 's  ultimate  but  treach- 
erous cleaving  to  the  woman  in  her  sister,  Ursula's  dangerous 
helplessness,  as  if  she  were  helplessly  weighted,  and  unreleased. 

"That  was  very  beautiful,"  everybody  cried  with  one 
accord.  But  Hermione  writhed  in  her  soul,  knowing  what 
she  could  not  know.  She  cried  out  for  more  dancing,  and  it 
was  her  will  that  set  the  contessa  and  Birkin  moving  mock- 
ingly in  Malbrouk. 

Gerald  was  excited  by  the  desperate  cleaving  of  Gudrun 
to  Naomi.  The  essence  of  that  female,  subterranean  reckless- 
ness and  mockery  penetrated  his  blood.  He  could  not  forget 
Gudrun's  lifted,  offered,  cleaving,  reckless,  yet  withal  mock- 
ing weight.  And  Birkin,  watching  like  a  hermit  crab  from 
its  hole,  had  seen  the  brilliant  frustration  and  helplessness  of 
Ursula.  She  was  rich,  full  of  dangerous  power.  She  was  like 
a  strange  unconscious  bud  of  powerful  womanhood.  He  was 
unconsciously  drawn  to  her.      She  was  his  future. 

Alexander  played  some  Hungarian  music,  and  they  all 
danced,  seized  by  the  spirit.  Gerald  was  marvellously  exhil- 
arated at  finding  himself  in  motion,  moving  towards  Gudrun, 
dancing  with  feet  that  could  not  yet  escape  from  the  waltz 
and  the  two-step,  but  feeling  his  force  stir  along  his  limbs 
and  his  body,  out  of  captivity.  He  did  not  know  yet  how  to 
dance  their  convulsive,  rag-time  sort  of  dancing,  but  he  knew 
how  to  begin.  Birkin,  when  he  could  get  free  from  the  weight 
of  the  people  present,  whom  he  disliked,  danced  rapidly  and 
with  a  real  gaiety.  And  how  Hermione  hated  him  for  this 
irresponsible  gaiety. 

"Now  I  see,"  cried  the  contessa  excitedly,  watching  his 
purely  gay  motion,  which  he  had  all  to  himself.  "Mr.  Bir- 
kin, he  is  a  changer." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  99 

Hermione  looked  at  her  slowly,  and  shuddered,  knowing 
that  only  a  foreigner  could  have  seen  and  have  said  this. 

"Cosa  voul'dire,  Palestra?"  she  asked,  sing-song. 

"Look,"  said  the  contessa,  in  Italian.  "He  is  not  a  man, 
he  is  a  chameleon,  a  creature  of  change." 

"He  is  not  a  man,  he  is  treacherous,  not  one  of  us,"  said 
itself  over  in  Hermione's  consciousness.  And  her  soul  writhed 
in  the  black  subjugation  to  him,  because  of  his  power  to 
escape,  to  exist,  other  than  she  did,  because  he  was  not  con- 
sistent, not  a  man,  less  than  a  man.  She  hated  him  in  a 
despair  that  shattered  her  and  broke  her  down,  so  that  she 
suffered  sheer  dissolution  like  a  corpse,  and  was  unconscious 
of  everything  save  the  horrible  sickness  of  dissolution  that 
was  taking  place  within  her,  body  and  soul. 

The  house  being  full,  Gerald  was  given  the  smaller  room, 
really  the  dressing-room,  communicating  with  Birkin's  bed- 
room. When  they  all  took  their  candles  and  mounted  the 
stairs,  where  the  lamps  were  burning  subduedly,  Hermione 
captured  Ursula  and  brought  her  into  her  own  bedroom,  to 
talk  to  her.  A  sort  of  constraint  came  over  Ursula  in  the 
big,  strange  bedroom.  Hermione  seemed  to  be  bearing  down 
on  her,  awful  and  inchoate,  making  some  appeal.  They  were 
looking  at  some  Indian  silk  shirts,  gorgeous  and  sensual  in 
themselves,  their  shape,  their  almost  corrupt  gorgeousness. 
And  Hermione  came  near,  and  her  bosom  writhed,  and  Ursula 
was  for  a  moment  blank  with  panic.  And  for  a  moment 
Hermione's  haggard  eyes  saw  the  fear  on  the  face  of  the 
other,  there  was  again  a  sort  of  crash,  a  crashing  down.  And 
Ursula  picked  up  a  shirt  of  rich  red  and  blue  silk,  made  for 
a  young  princess  of  fourteen,  and  was  crying  mechanically: 

"Isn't  it  wonderful — who  would  dare  to  put  those  two 
strong  colours  together — ?" 

Then  Hermione's  maid  entered  silently  and  Ursula,  over- 
come with  dread,  escaped,  carried  away  by  powerful  impulse. 

Birkin  went  straight  to  bed.  He  was  feeling  happy,  and 
sleepy.  Since  he  had  danced  he  was  happy.  But  Gerald 
would  talk  to  him.  Gerald,  in  evening  dress,  sat  on  Birkin's 
bed  when  the  other  lay  down,  and  must  talk. 

"Who  are  those  two  Brangwens?"  Gerald  asked. 


100  WOMEN  IN   LOVE 

"They  live  in  Beldover." 

"In  Beldover?     Who  are  they  then?" 

"Teachers  in  the  Grammar  School." 

There  was  a  pause. 

"They  are!"  exclaimed  Gerald  at  length.  "I  thought  I 
had  seen  them  before." 

"It  disappoints  you?"  said  Birkin. 

"Disappoints  me?  No — But  how  is  it  Hermione  has 
them  here? 

"She  knew  Gudrun  in  London — that's  the  younger  one, 
the  one  with  the  darker  hair — she's  an  artist — does  sculpture 
and  modelling." 

"She's  not  a  teacher  in  the  Grammar  School,  then — only 
the  other?" 

"Both — Gudrun  art  mistress,  Ursula  a  class  mistress." 

"And  what's  the  father?" 

"Handicraft  instructor  in  the  schools." 

"Really!" 

"Class-barriers  are  breaking  down!" 

Gerald  was  always  uneasy  under  the  slightly  jeering  tone 
of  the  other. 

"That  their  father  is  handicraft  instructor  in  a  school! 
What  does  it  matter  to  me?" 

Birkin  laughed.  Gerald  looked  at  his  face,  as  it  lay  there 
laughing  and  bitter  and  indifferent  on  the  pillow,  and  he  could 
not  go  away. 

"I  don't  suppose  you  will  see  very  much  more  of  Gudrun, 
at  least.  She  is  a  restless  bird,  she'll  be  gone  in  a  week  or 
two,"  said  Birkin. 

"Where  will  she  go?" 

"London,  Paris,  Rome — heaven  knows.  I  always  expect 
her  to  sheer  off  to  Damascus  or  San  Francisco;  she's  a  bird 
of  paradise.  God  knows  what  she's  got  to  do  with  Beldover. 
It  goes  by  contraries,  like  dreams." 

Gerald  pondered  for  a  few  moments. 

"How  do  you  know  her  so  well?"  he  asked. 

"I  knew  her  in  London,"  he  replied,  "in  the  Algernon 
Strange  set.  She'll  know  about  Pussum  and  Libidnikov  and 
the  rest — even  if  she  doesn't  know  them  personally.— She  was 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  101 

never  quite  that  set — more  conventional,  in  a  way.  I've 
known  her  for  two  years,  I  suppose." 

"And  she  makes  money,  apart  from  her  teaching?"  asked 
Gerald. 

"Some — irregularly.  She  can  sell  her  models.  She  has  a 
pertain  reclame." 

"How  much  for?" 

"A  guinea,  ten  guineas." 

"And  are  they  good?     What  are  they?" 

"I  think  sometimes  they  are  marvellously  good.  That  is 
hers,  those  two  wagtails  in  Hermione's  boudoir — you've  seen 
them — they  are  carved  in  wood  and  painted." 

"I  thought  it  was  savage  carving  again." 

"No,  hers.  That's  what  they  are — animals  and  birds, 
sometimes  odd  small  people  in  everyday  dress,  really  rather 
wonderful  when  they  come  off.  They  have  a  sort  of  funni- 
ness  that  is  quite  unconscious  and  subtle." 

"She  might  be  a  well-known  artist  one  day?"  mused  Gerald. 

"She  might.  But  I  think  she  won't.  She  drops  her  art 
if  anything  else  catches  her.  Her  contrariness  prevents  her 
taking  it  seriously — she  must  never  be  too  serious,  she  feels 
she  might  give  herself  away.  And  she  won't  give  herself 
away — she's  always  on  the  defensive.  That's  what  I  can't 
stand  about  her  type.  By  the  way,  how  did  things  go  off 
with  Pussum  after  I  left  you?     I  haven't  heard  anything." 

"Oh,  rather  disgusting.  Halliday  turned  objectionable, 
and  I  only  just  saved  myself  from  jumping  in  his  stomach,  in 
a  real  old-fashioned  row." 

Birkin  was  silmt. 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  "Julius  is  somewhat  insane.  On 
the  one  hand  he's  had  religious  mania,  and  on  the  other,  he 
is  fascinated  by  obscenity.  Either  he  is  a  pure  servant,  wash- 
ing the  feet  of  Christ,  or  else  he  is  making  obscene  drawings 
of  Jesus — action  and  reaction — and  between  the  two,  nothing. 
He  is  really  insane.  He  wants  a  pure  lily,  another  girl,  with 
a  baby  face,  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other,  he  must  have 
the  Pussum,  just  to  defile  himself  with  her." 

"That's  what  I  can't  make  out,"  said  Gerald.  "Does  he 
love  her,  the  Pussum,  or  doesn't  he?" 


102  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

"He  neither  does  nor  doesn't.  She  is  the  harlot,  the 
actual  harlot  of  adultery  to  him.  And  he's  got  a  craving  to 
throw  himself  into  the  filth  of  her.  Then  he  gets  up  and 
calls  on  the  name  of  the  lily  of  purity,  the  baby-faced  girl, 
and  so  enjoys  himself  all  round.  It's  the  old  story — action 
and  reaction,  and  nothing  between." 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Gerald,  after  a  pause,  "that  he  does 
insult  the  Pussum  so  very  much.  She  strikes  me  as  being 
rather  foul." 

"But  I  thought  you  liked  her,"  exclaimed  Birkin.  "I 
always  felt  fond  of  her.  I  never  had  anything  to  do  with 
her,  personally,  that's  true." 

"I  liked  her  all  right,  for  a  couple  of  days,"  said  Gerald. 
"But  a  week  of  her  would  have  turned  me  over.  There's  a 
certain  smell  about  the  skin  of  those  women,  that  in  the  end 
is  sickening  beyond  words — even  if  you  like  it  at  first." 

"I  know,"  said  Birkin.  Then  he  added,  rather  fretfully, 
"But  go  to  bed,  Gerald.      God  knows  what  time  it  is." 

Gerald  looked  at  his  watch,  and  at  length  rose  off  the  bed, 
and  went  to  his  room.  But  he  returned  in  a  few  moments, 
in  his  shirt. 

"One  thing,"  he  said,  seating  himself  on  the  bed  again. 
"We  finished  up  rather  stormily,  and  I  never  had  time  to 
give  her  anything." 

"Money?"  said  Birkin.  "She'll  get  what  she  wants  from 
Halliday  or  from  one  of  her  acquaintances." 

"But  then,"  said  Gerald,  "I'd  rather  give  her  her  dues  and 
settle  the  account." 

"She  doesn't  care." 

"No,  perhaps  not. — But  one  feels  the  account  is  left  open, 
and  one  would  rather  it  were  closed." 

"Would  you?"  said  Birkin.  He  was  looking  at  the  white 
legs  of  Gerald,  as  the  latter  sat  on  the  side  of  the  bed  in  his 
shirt.  They  were  white-skinned,  full,  muscular  legs,  hand- 
some and  decided.  Yet  they  moved  Birkin  with  a  sort  of 
pathos,  tenderness,  as  if  they  were  childish. 

"I  think  I'd  rather  close  the  account,"  said  Gerald,  re- 
peating himself  vaguely. 

"It  doesn't  matter  one  way  or  another,"  said  Birkin. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  10S 

"You  always  say  it  doesn't  matter,"  said  Gerald,  a  little 
puzzled,  looking  down  at  the  face  of  the  other  man  affection- 
ately. 

"Neither  does  it,"  said  Birkin. 

"But  she  was  a  decent  sort,  really." 

"Render  unto  Casarina  the  things  that  are  Csesarina's," 
said  Birkin,  turning  aside.  It  seemed  to  him  Gerald  was 
talking  for  the  sake  of  talking.  "Go  away,  it  wearies  me — 
it's  too  late  at  night,"  he  said. 

"I  wish  you'd  tell  me  something  that  did  matter,"  said 
Gerald,  looking  down  all  the  time  at  the  face  of  the  other 
man,  waiting  for  something.  But  Birkin  turned  his  face 
aside. 

"All  right  then,  go  to  sleep,"  said  Gerald,  and  he  laid  his 
hand  affectionately  on  the  other  man's  shoulder,  and  went 
away. 

In  the  morning  when  Gerald  awoke  and  heard  Birkin  move, 
he  called  out:  "I  still  think  I  ought  to  give  the  Pussum  ten 
pounds." 

"Oh  God!"  said  Birkin,  "don't  be  so  matter-of-fact.  Close 
the  account  in  your  own  soul,  if  you  like.  It  is  there  you 
can't  close  it." 

"How  do  you  know  I  can't?" 

"Knowing  you,"  came  the  laconic  answer. 

Gerald  meditated  for  some  moments. 

"It  seems  to  me  the  right  thing  to  do,  you  know,  with  the 
Pussums,  is  to  pay  them." 

"And  the  right  thing  for  mistresses:  keep  them.  And 
the  right  thing  for  wives:  live  under  the  same  roof  with 
them.     Integer  vitje  sceleresque  purus!"  said  Birkin. 

"There's  no  need  to  be  nasty  about  it,"  said  Gerald. 

"It  bores  me.     I'm  not  interested  in  your  peccadilloes." 

"And  I  don't  care  whether  you  are  or  not — I  am." 

The  morning  was  again  sunny.  The  maid  had  been  in 
and  brought  the  water,  and  had  drawn  the  curtains.  Birkin, 
sitting  up  in  bed,  looked  lazily  and  pleasantly  out  on  the  park, 
that  was  so  green  and  deserted,  romantic,  belonging  to  the 
past.  He  was  thinking  how  lovely,  how  sure,  how  formed, 
how  final  all  the  things  of  the  past  were — the  lovely  accom- 


104  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

plished  past — this  house,  so  still  and  golden,  the  park  slum- 
bering its  centuries  of  peace.  And  then,  what  a  snare  and 
a  delusion,  this  beauty  of  static  things — what  a  horrible,  dead 
prison  Breadalby  really  was,  what  an  intolerable  confinement, 
the  peace!  Yet  it  was  better  than  the  sordid  scrambling  con- 
flict of  the  present.  If  only  one  might  create  the  future  after 
one's  own  heart — for  a  little  pure  truth,  a  little  unflinching 
application  of  simple  truth  to  life,  the  heart  cried  out  cease- 
lessly. 

"I  can't  see  what  you  will  leave  me  at  all,  to  be  interested 
in,"  came  Gerald's  voice  from  the  lower  room.  "Neither  the 
Pussums,  nor  the  mines,  nor  anything  else." 

"You  be  interested  in  what  you  can,  Gerald.  Only  I'm 
not  interested  myself,"  said  Birkin. 

"What  am  I  to  do  at  all,  then?"  came  Gerald's  voice. 

"What  you  like. — What  am  I  to  do  myself?" 

In  the  silence  Birkin  could  feel  Gerald  musing  this  fact. 

"I'm  blest  if  I  know,"  came  the  good-humoured  answer. 

"You  see,"  said  Birkin,  "part  of  you  wants  the  Pussum, 
and  nothing  but  the  Pussum,  part  of  you  wants  the  mines, 
the  business,  and  nothing  but  the  business — and  there  you 
are — all  in  bits — " 

"And  part  of  mc  wants  something  else,"  said  Gerald,  in  a 
queer,  quiet,  real  voice. 

"What?"  said  Birkin,  rather  surprised. 

"That's  what  I  hoped  you  could  tell  me,"  said  Gerald. 

There  was  a  silence  for  some  time. 

"I  can't  tell  you. — I  can't  find  my  own  way,  let  alone 
yours.      You  might  marry,"  Birkin  replied. 

"Who — the  Pussum?"  asked  Gerald. 

"Perhaps,"  said  Birkin.  And  he  rose  and  went  to  the 
window. 

"That  is  your  panacea,"  said  Gerald.  "But  you  haven't 
even  tried  it  on  yourself  yet,  and  you  are  sick  enough." 

"I  am,"  said  Birkin.      "Still,  I  shall  come  right." 

"Through  marriage?" 

"Yes,"  Birkin  answered  obstinately. 

"And  no,"  added  Gerald.      "No,  no,  no,  my  boy." 

There  was  a  silence  between  them,  and  a  strange  tension 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  105 

of  hostility.  They  always  kept  a  gap,  a  distance  between 
them,  they  wanted  always  to  be  free  each  of  the  other.  Yet 
there  was  a  curious  heart-straining  towards  each  other. 

"Salvator  femininus,"  said  Gerald,  satirically. 

"Why  not?"  said  Birkin. 

"No  reason  at  all,"  said  Gerald,  "if  it  really  works.  But 
whom  will  you  marry?" 

"A  woman,"  said  Birkin. 

"Good,"  said  Gerald. 

Birkin  and  Gerald  were  the  last  to  come  down  to  break- 
fast. Hermione  liked  everybody  to  be  early.  She  suffered 
when  she  felt  her  day  was  diminished,  she  felt  she  had  missed 
her  life.  She  seemed  to  grip  the  hours  by  the  throat,  to  force 
her  life  from  them.  She  was  rather  pale  and  ghastly,  as  if 
left  behind,  in  the  morning.  Yet  she  had  her  power,  her 
will  was  strangely  pervasive.  With  the  entrance  of  the  two 
young  men  a  sudden  tension  was  felt. 

She  lifted  her  face,  and  said,  in  her  amused  sing-song: 

"Good  morning!     Did  you  sleep  well? — I'm  so  glad." 

And  she  turned  away,  ignoring  them.  Birkin,  who  knew 
her  well,  saw  that  she  intended  to  discount  his  existence. 

"Will  you  take  what  you  want  from  the  sideboard?"  said 
Alexander,  in  a  voice  slightly  suggesting  disapprobation.  "I 
hope  the  things  aren't  cold.  Oh,  no!  Do  you  mind  putting 
out  the  flame  under  the  chafing-dish,  Rupert?     Thank  you." 

Even  Alexander  was  rather  authoritative  where  Hermione 
was  cool.  He  took  his  tone  from  her  inevitably.  Birkin  sat 
down  and  looked  at  the  table.  He  was  so  used  to  this  house, 
to  this  room,  to  this  atmosphere,  through  years  of  intimacy, 
and  now  he  felt  in  complete  opposition  to  it  all,  it  had  noth- 
ing to  do  with  him.  How  well  he  knew  Hermione,  as  she  sat 
there,  erect  and  silent  and  somewhat  bemused,  and  yet  so 
potent,  so  powerful!  He  knew  her  statically,  so  finally,  that 
it  was  almost  like  a  madness.  It  was  difficult  to  believe  one 
was  not  mad,  that  one  was  not  a  figure  in  the  hall  of  kings 
in  some  Egyptian  tomb,  where  the  dead  all  sat  immemorial 
and  tremendous.  How  utterly  he  knew  Joshua  Malleson, 
who  was  talking  in  his  harsh,  yet  rather  mincing  voice,  end- 
lessly, endlessly,  always  with  a  strong  mentality   working, 


106  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

always  interesting,  and  yet  always  known,  everything  he 
said  known  beforehand,  however  novel  it  was,  and  clever. 
Alexander  the  up-to-date  host,  so  bloodlessly  free-and-easy, 
Fraulein  so  prettily  chiming  in  just  as  she  should,  the  little 
Italian  countess  taking  notice  of  anybody,  only  playing  her 
little  game,  objective  and  cold,  like  a  weasel  watching  every- 
thing, and  extracting  her  own  amusement,  never  giving  her- 
self in  the  slightest;  then  Miss  Bradley,  heavy  and  rather 
subservient,  treated  with  cool,  almost  amused  contempt  by 
Hermione,  and  therefore  slighted  by  everybody — how  known 
it  all  was,  like  a  game  with  the  figures  set  out,  the  same  fig- 
ures, the  Queen  of  chess,  the  knights,  the  pawns,  the  same 
now  as  they  were  hundreds  of  years  ago,  the  same  figures 
moving  round  in  one  of  the  innumerable  permutations  that 
make  up  the  game.  But  the  game  is  known,  its  going  on  is 
like  a  madness,  it  is  so  exhausted. 

There  was  Gerald,  an  amused  look  on  his  face;  the  game 
pleased  him.  There  was  Gudrun,  watching  with  steady, 
large,  hostile  eyes;  the  game  fascinated  her,  and  she  loathed 
it.  There  was  Ursula,  with  a  slightly  startled  look  on  her 
face,  as  if  she  were  hurt,  and  the  pain  were  just  outside  her 
consciousness. 

Suddenly  Birkin  got  up  and  went  out. 

"That's  enough,"  he  said  to  himself  involuntarily. 

Hermione  knew  his  motion,  though  not  in  her  conscious- 
ness. She  lifted  her  heavy  eyes  and  saw  him  lapse  suddenly 
away,  on  a  sudden,  unknown  tide,  and  the  waves  broke  over 
her.  Only  her  indomitable  will  remained  static  and  mechan- 
ical; she  sat  at  the  table  making  her  musing,  stray  remarks. 
But  the  darkness  had  covered  her,  she  was  like  a  ship  that 
has  gone  down.  It  was  finished  for  her,  too,  she  was  wrecked 
in  the  darkness.  Yet  the  unfailing  mechanism  of  her  will 
worked  on,  she  had  that  activity. 

"Shall  we  bathe  this  morning?"  she  said,  suddenly  look- 
ing at  them  all. 

"Splendid,"  said  Joshua.      "It  is  a  perfect  morning." 

"Oh,  it  is  beautiful,"  said  Fraulein. 

"Yes,  let  us  bathe,"  said  the  Italian  woman. 

"We  have  no  bathing  suits,"  said  Gerald. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  107 

"Have  mine,"  said  Alexander.  "I  must  go  to  church  and 
read  the  lessons.     They  expect  me." 

"Are  you  a  Christian?"  asked  the  Italian  countess,  with 
sudden  interest. 

"No,"  said  Alexander.  "I'm  not.  But  I  believe  in  keep- 
ing up  the  old  institutions." 

"They  are  so  beautiful,"  said  Fraulein  daintily. 

"Oh,  they  are,"  cried  Miss  Bradley. 

They  all  trailed  out  on  to  the  lawn.  It  was  a  sunny, 
soft  morning  in  early  summer,  when  life  ran  in  the  world 
subtly,  like  a  reminiscence.  The  church  bells  were  ringing  a 
little  way  off,  not  a  cloud  was  in  the  sky,  the  swans  were 
like  lilies  on  the  water  below,  the  peacocks  walked  with  long, 
prancing  steps  across  the  shadow  and  into  the  sunshine  of 
the  grass.  One  wanted  to  swoon  into  the  by-gone  perfection 
of  it  all. 

"Good-bye,"  called  Alexander,  waving  his  gloves  cheerily, 
and  he  disappeared  behind  the  bushes,  on  his  way  to  church. 

"Now,"  said  Hermione,  "shall  we  all  bathe?" 

"I  won't,"  said  Ursula. 

"You  don't  want  to?"  said  Hermione,  looking  at  her 
slowly. 

"No.     I  don't  want  to,"  said  Ursula. 

"Nor  I,"  said  Gudrun. 

"What  about  my  suit?"  asked  Gerald. 

"I  don't  know,"  laughed  Hermione,  with  an  odd,  amused 
intonation.      "Will  a  handkerchief  do — a  large  handkerchief?" 

"That  will  do,"  said  Gerald. 

"Come  along  then,"  sang  Hermione. 

The  first  to  run  across  the  lawn  was  the  little  Italian, 
small  and  like  a  cat,  her  white  legs  twinkling  as  she  went, 
ducking  slightly  her  head,  that  was  tied  in  a  gold  silk  ker- 
chief. She  tripped  through  the  gate  and  down  the  grass, 
and  stood,  like  a  tiny  figure  of  ivory  and  bronze,  at  the  water's 
edge,  having  dropped  off  her  towelling,  watching  the  swans, 
which  came  up  in  surprise.  Then  out  ran  Miss  Bradley, 
like  a  large,  soft  plum  in  her  dark-blue  suit.  Then  Gerald 
came,  a  scarlet  silk  kerchief  round  his  loins,  his  towels  over 
his  arms.      He  seemed  to  flaunt  himself  a  little  in  the  sun, 


108  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

lingering  and  laughing,  strolling  easily,  looking  white  but 
natural  in  his  nakedness.  Then  came  Sir  Joshua,  in  an  over- 
coat, and  lastly  Hermione,  striding  with  stiff  grace  from  out 
of  a  great  mantle  of  purple  silk,  her  head  tied  up  in  purple 
and  gold.  Handsome  was  her  stiff,  long  body,  her  straight- 
stepping  white  legs,  there  was  a  static  magnificence  about  her 
as  she  let  the  cloak  float  loosely  away  from  her  striding. 
She  crossed  the  lawn  like  some  strange  memory,  and  passed 
slowly  and  statelily  towards  the  water. 

There  were  three  ponds,  in  terraces  descending  the  valley, 
large  and  smooth  and  beautiful,  lying  in  the  sun.  The  water 
ran  over  a  little  stone  wall,  over  small  rocks,  splashing  down 
from  one  pond  to  the  level  below.  The  swans  had  gone  out 
on  to  the  opposite  bank,  the  reeds  smelled  sweet,  a  faint  breeze 
touched  the  skin. 

Gerald  had  dived  in,  after  Sir  Joshua,  and  had  swum  to 
the  end  of  the  pond.  There  he  climbed  out  and  sat  on  the 
wall.  There  was  a  dive,  and  the  little  countess  was  swimming 
like  a  rat,  to  join  him.  They  both  sat  in  the  sun,  laughing 
and  crossing  their  arms  on  their  breasts.  Sir  Joshua  swam 
up  to  them,  and  stood  near  them,  up  to  his  arm-pits  in  the 
water.  Then  Hermione  and  Miss  Bradley  swam  over,  and 
they  sat  in  a  row  on  the  embankment. 

"Aren't  they  terrifying?  Aren't  they  really  terrifying?" 
said  Gudrun.  "Don't  they  look  saurian?  They  are  just 
like  great  lizards.  Did  you  ever  see  anything  like  Sir  Joshua? 
But  really,  Ursula,  he  belongs  to  the  primeval  world,  when 
great  lizards  crawled  about." 

Gudrun  looked  in  dismay  on  Sir  Joshua,  who  stood  up  to 
the  breast  in  the  water,  his  long,  greyish  hair  washed  down 
into  his  eyes,  his  neck  set  into  thick,  crude  shoulders.  He 
was  talking  to  Miss  Bradley,  who,  seated  on  the  bank  above, 
plump  and  big  and  wet,  looked  as  if  she  might  roll  and  slither 
in  the  water  almost  like  one  of  the  slithering  sea-lions  in  the 
Zoo. 

Ursula  watched  in  silence.  Gerald  was  laughing  happily, 
between  Hermione  and  the  Italian.  He  reminded  her  of 
Dionysos,  because  his  hair  was  really  yellow,  his  figure  so 
full   and   laughing.       Hermione,    in   her   large,   stiff,   sinister 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  109 

grace,  leaned  near  him,  frightening,  as  if  she  were  not  respon- 
sible for  what  she  might  do.  He  knew  a  certain  danger  in 
her,  a  convulsive  madness.  But  he  only  laughed  the  more, 
turning  often  to  the  little  countess,  who  was  flashing  up  her 
face  at  him. 

They  all  dropped  into  the  water,  and  were  swimming  to- 
gether like  a  shoal  of  seals.  Hermione  was  powerful  and 
unconscious  in  the  water,  large  and  slow  and  powerful,  Pal- 
estra was  quick  and  silent  as  a  water  rat,  Gerald  wavered 
and  flickered,  a  white  natural  shadow.  Then,  one  after  the 
other,  they  waded  out,  and  went  up  to  the  house. 

But  Gerald  lingered  a  moment  to  speak  to  Gudrun. 

"You  don't  like  the  water?"  he  said. 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  long,  slow  inscrutable  look,  as 
he  stood  before  her  negligently,  the  water  standing  in  beads 
all  over  his  skin. 

"I  like  it  very  much,"  she  replied. 

He  paused,  expecting  some  sort  of  explanation. 

"And  you  swim?" 

"Yes,  I  swim." 

Still  he  would  not  ask  her  why  she  would  not  go  in  then. 
He  could  feel  something  ironic  in  her.  He  walked  away, 
piqued  for  the  first  time. 

"Why  wouldn't  you  bathe?"  he  asked  her  again,  later,  when 
he  was  once  more  the  properly  dressed  young  Englishman. 

She  hesitated  a  moment  before  answering,  opposing  his 
persistence. 

"Because  I  didn't  like  the  crowd,"  she  replied. 

He  laughed,  her  phrase  seemed  to  re-echo  in  his  conscious- 
ness. The  flavour  of  her  slang  was  piquant  to  him.  Whether 
he  would  or  not,  she  signified  the  real  world  to  him.  He 
wanted  to  come  up  to  her  standards,  fulfil  her  expectations. 
Be  knew  that  her  criterion  was  the  only  one  that  mattered. 
The  others  were  all  outsiders,  instinctively,  whatever  they 
might  be  socially.  And  Gerald  could  not  help  it,  he  was 
bound  to  strive  to  come  up  to  her  criterion,  fulfil  her  idea 
of  a  man  and  a  human-being. 

After  lunch,  when  all  the  others  had  withdrawn,  Hermione 
and  Gerald  and  Birkin  lingered,  finishing  their  talk.      Then- 


110  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

had  been  some  discussion,  on  the  whole  quite  intellectual  and 
artificial,  about  a  new  state,  a  new  world  of  man.  Supposing 
this  old  social  state  were  broken  and  destroyed,  then,  out  of 
the  chaos,  what  then? 

The  great  social  idea,  said  Sir  Joshua,  was  the  social 
equality  of  man.  No,  said  Gerald,  the  idea  was,  that  every 
man  was  fit  for  his  own  little  bit  of  a  task — let  him  do  that, 
and  then  please  himself.  The  unifying  principle  was  the  work 
in  hand.  Only  work,  the  business  of  production,  held  men 
together.  It  was  mechanical,  but  then  society  was  a  mechan- 
ism. Apart  from  work  they  were  isolated,  free  to  do  as  they 
liked. 

"Oh!"  cried  Gudrun.  "Then  we  shan't  have  names  any 
more — we  shall  be  like  the  Germans,  nothing  but  Herr  Ober- 
meister  and  Herr  Untermeister.  I  can  imagine  it — T  am 
Mrs.  Colliery-Manager  Crich — I  am  Mrs.  Member-of-Parlia- 
ment  Roddice.  I  am  Miss  Art-Teacher  Brangwen.'  Very 
pretty  that." 

"Things  would  work  very  much  better,  Miss  Art-Teacher 
Brangwen,"  said  Gerald. 

"What  things,  Mr.  Colliery -Manager  Crich?  The  rela- 
tion between  you  and  me,  par  exemple?" 

"Yes,  for  example,"  cried  the  Italian.  "That  which  is 
between  men  and  women — !" 

"That  is  non-social,"  said  Birkin,  sarcastically. 

"Exactly,"  said  Gerald.  "Between  me  and  a  woman, 
the  social  question  does  not  enter.      It  is  my  own  affair." 

"A  ten-pound  note  on  it,"  said  Birkin. 

"You  don't  admit  that  a  woman  is  a  social  being?"  asked 
Ursula  of  Gerald. 

"She  is  both,"  said  Gerald.  "She  is  a  social  being,  as 
far  as  society  is  concerned.  But  for  her  own  private  self, 
she  is  a  free  agent,  it  is  her  own  affair,  what  she  does." 

"But  won't  it  be  rather  difficult  to  arrange  the  two 
halves?"  asked  Ursula. 

"Oh  no,"  replied  Gerald.  "They  arrange  themselves 
naturally — we  see  it  now,  everywhere." 

"Don't  you  laugh  so  pleasantly  till  you're  out  of  the 
wood,"  said  Birkin. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  111 

Gerald  knitted  his  brows  in  momentary  irritation. 

"Was  I  laughing?"  he  said. 

"//,"  said  Hermione  at  last,  "we  could  only  realise,  that 
in  the  spirit  we  are  all  one,  all  equal  in  the  spirit,  all  brothers 
there — the  rest  wouldn't  matter,  there  would  be  no  more  of 
this  carping  and  envy  and  this  struggle  for  power,  which 
destroys,  only  destroys." 

This  speech  was  received  in  silence,  and  almost  immediately 
the  party  rose  from  the  table.  But  when  the  others  had 
gone,  Birkin  turned  round  in  bitter  declamation,  saying: 

"It  is  just  the  opposite,  just  the  contrary,  Hermione. 
We  are  all  different  and  unequal  in  spirit — it  is  only  the  social 
differences  that  are  based  on  accidental  material  conditions. 
We  are  all  abstractly  or  mathematically  equal,  if  you  like. 
Every  man  has  hunger  and  thirst,  two  eyes,  one  nose  and  two 
legs.  We're  all  the  same  in  point  of  number.  But  spiri- 
tually, there  is  pure  difference  and  neither  equality  nor  in- 
equality counts.  It  is  upon  these  two  bits  of  knowledge  that 
you  must  found  a  state.  Your  democracy  is  an  absolute 
lie — your  brotherhood  of  man  is  a  pure  falsity,  if  you  apply 
it  further  than  the  mathematical  abstraction.  We  all  drank 
milk  first,  we  all  eat  bread  and  meat,  we  all  want  to  ride  in 
motor-cars — therein  lies  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  the 
brotherhood  of  man.     But  no  equality. 

"But  I,  myself,  who  am  myself,  what  have  I  to  do  with 
equality  with  any  other  man  or  woman?  In  the  spirit,  I  am 
as  separate  as  one  star  is  from  another,  as  different  in  quality 
and  quantity.  Establish  a  state  on  thai.  One  man  isn't 
any  better  than  another,  not  because  they  are  equal,  but  be- 
cause they  are  intrinsically  other,  that  there  is  no  term  of 
comparison.  The  minute  you  begin  to  compare,  one  man  is 
seen  to  be  far  better  than  another,  all  the  inequality  you  can 
imagine,  is  there  by  nature.  I  want  every  man  to  have  his 
share  in  the  world's  goods,  so  that  I  am  rid  of  his  importunity, 
so  that  I  can  tell  him:  'Now  you've  got  what  you  want — 
you've  got  your  fair  share  of  the  world's  gear.  Now,  you 
one-mouthed  fool,  mind  yourself  and  don't  obstruct  me.'  " 

Hermione  was  looking  at  him  with  leering  eyes,  along  her 
cheeks.      He  could  feel  violent  waves  of  hatred  and  loathing 


112  WOMEN  IN   LOVE 

of  all  he  said,  coming  out  of  her.  It  was  dynamic  hatred  and 
loathing,  coming  strong  and  black  out  of  the  unconsciousness. 
She  heard  his  words  in  her  unconscious  self,  consciously  she 
was  as  if  deafened,  she  paid  no  heed  to  them. 

"It  sounds  like  megalomania,  Rupert,"  said  Gerald, 
genially. 

Hermione  gave  a  queer,  grunting  sound.  Birkin  stood  back. 

"Yes,  let  it,"  he  said  suddenly,  the  whole  tone  gone  out 
of  his  voice,  that  had  been  so  insistent,  bearing  everybody 
down.      And  he  went  away. 

But  he  felt,  later,  a  little  compunction.  He  had  been 
violent,  cruel  with  poor  Hermione.  He  wanted  to  recom- 
pense her,  to  make  it  up.  He  had  hurt  her,  he  had  been 
vindictive.     He  wanted  to  be  on  good  terms  with  her  again. 

He  went  into  her  boudoir,  a  remote  and  very  cushiony 
place.  She  was  sitting  at  her  table  writing  letters.  She  lifted 
her  face  abstractedly  when  he  entered,  watched  him  go  to 
the  sofa,  and  sit  down.  Then  she  looked  down  at  her  paper 
again. 

He  took  a  large  volume  which  he  had  been  reading  before, 
and  became  minutely  attentive  to  his  author.  His  back  was 
towards  Hermione.  She  could  not  go  on  with  her  writing. 
Her  whole  mind  was  a  chaos,  darkness  breaking  in  upon  it, 
and  herself  struggling  to  gain  control  with  her  will,  as  a  swim- 
mer struggles  with  the  swirling  water.  But  in  spite  of  her 
efforts  she  was  borne  down,  darkness  seemed  to  break  over 
her,  she  felt  as  if  her  heart  was  bursting.  The  terrible  ten- 
sion grew  stronger  and  stronger,  it  was  most  fearful  agony, 
like  being  walled  up. 

And  then  she  realised  that  his  presence  was  the  wall,  his 
presence  was  destroying  her.  Unless  she  could  break  out, 
she  must  die  most  fearfully,  walled  up  in  horror.  And  he 
was  the  wall.  She  must  break  down  the  wall.  She  must 
break  him  down  before  her,  the  awful  obstruction  of  him 
who  obstructed  her  life  to  the  last.  It  must  be  done,  or  she 
must  perish  most  horribly. 

Terribly  shocks  ran  over  her  body,  like  shocks  of  elec- 
tricity, as  if  many  volts  of  electricity  suddenly  struck  her 
down.      She  was  aware  of  him  sitting  silently  there,  an  un- 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  113 

thinkable  evil  obstruction.  Only  this  blotted  out  her  mind, 
pressed  out  her  very  breathing,  his  silent,  stooping  back,  the 
back  of  his  head. 

A  terrible  voluptuous  thrill  ran  down  her  arms — she  was 
going  to  know  her  voluptuous  consummation.  Her  arms 
quivered  and  were  strong,  immeasurably  and  irresistibly 
strong.  What  delight,  what  delight  in  strength,  what  de- 
lirium of  pleasure!  She  was  going  to  have  her  consummation 
of  voluptuous  ecstasy  at  last!  It  was  coming!  In  utmost 
terror  and  agony,  she  knew  it  was  upon  her  now,  in  extremity 
of  bliss.  Her  hand  closed  on  a  blue,  beautiful  ball  of  lapis 
lazuli  that  stood  on  her  desk  for  a  paper-weight.  She  rolled 
it  round  in  her  hand  as  she  rose  silently.  Her  heart  was 
a  pure  flame  in  her  breast,  she  was  purely  unconscious  in 
ecstasy.  She  moved  towards  him  and  stood  behind  him  for 
a  moment  in  ecstasy.  He,  closed  within  the  spell,  remained 
motionless  and  unconscious. 

Then  swiftly,  in  a  flame  that  drenched  down  her  body 
like  fluid  lightning  and  gave  her  a  perfect,  unutterable  con- 
summation, unutterable  satisfaction,  she  brought  down  the 
ball  of  jewel  stone  with  all  her  force,  crash  on  his  head.  But 
her  fingers  were  in  the  way  and  deadened  the  blow.  Never- 
theless, down  went  his  head  on  the  table  on  which  his  book 
lay,  the  stone  slid  aside  and  over  his  ear,  it  was  one  convul- 
sion of  pure  bliss  for  her,  lit  up  by  the  crushed  pain  of  her 
fingers.  But  it  was  not  somehow  complete.  She  lifted  her 
arm  high  to  aim  once  more,  straight  down  on  the  head  that 
lay  dazed  on  the  table.  She  must  smash  it,  it  must  be 
smashed  before  her  ecstasy  was  consummated,  fulfilled  for 
ever.  A  thousand  lives,  a  thousand  deaths  mattered  noth- 
ing now,  only  the  fulfilment  of  this  perfect  ecstasy. 

She  was  not  swift,  she  could  only  move  slowly.  A  strong 
spirit  in  him  woke  him  and  made  him  lift  his  face  and  twist 
to  look  at  her.  Her  arm  was  raised,  the  hand  clasping  the 
ball  of  lapis  lazuli.  It  was  her  left  hand;  he  realised  again 
with  horror  that  she  was  left-handed.  Hurriedly,  with  a 
burrowing  motion,  he  covered  his  head  under  the  thick  vol- 
ume of  Thucydides,  and  the  blow  came  down,  almost  break- 
ing his  neck,  and  shattering  his  heart. 


114  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

He  was  shattered,  but  he  was  not  afraid.  Twisting  round 
to  face  her  he  pushed  the  table  over  and  got  away  from  her. 
He  was  like  a  flask  that  is  smashed  to  atoms,  he  seemed  to 
himself  that  he  was  all  fragments,  smashed  to  bits.  Yet  his 
movements  were  perfectly  coherent  and  clear,  his  soul  was 
entire  and  unsurprised. 

"No,  you  don't,  Hermione,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice.  "I 
don't  let  you." 

He  saw  her  standing  tall  and  livid  and  attentive,  the  stone 
clenched  tense  in  her  hand. 

"Stand  away  and  let  me  go,"  he  said,  drawing  near  to 
her. 

As  if  pressed  back  by  some  hand,  she  stood  away,  watch- 
ing him  all  the  time  without  changing,  like  a  neutralised  angel 
confronting  him. 

"It  is  no  good,"  he  said,  when  he  had  gone  past  her.  "It 
isn't  I  who  will  die.     You  hear?" 

He  kept  his  face  to  her  as  he  went  out,  lest  she  should 
strike  again.  While  he  was  on  his  guard,  she  dared  not 
move.  And  he  was  on  his  guard,  she  was  powerless.  So 
he  had  gone,  and  left  her  standing. 

She  remained  perfectly  rigid,  standing  as  she  was  for  a 
long  time.  Then  she  staggered  to  the  couch  and  lay  down, 
and  went  heavily  to  sleep.  When  she  awoke,  she  remem- 
bered what  she  had  done,  but  it  seemed  to  her,  she  had  only 
hit  him,  as  any  woman  might  do,  because  he  tortured  her. 
She  was  perfectly  right.  She  knew  that,  spiritually,  she  was 
right.  In  her  own  infallible  purity,  she  had  done  what  must 
be  done.  She  was  right,  she  was  pure.  A  drugged,  almost 
sinister  religious  expression  became  permanent  on  her  face. 

Birkin,  barely  conscious,  and  yet  perfectly  direct  in  his 
motion  went  out  of  the  house  and  straight  across  the  park, 
to  the  open  country,  to  the  hills.  The  brilliant  day  had 
become  overcast,  spots  of  rain  were  falling.  He  wandered 
on  to  a  wild  valley-side,  where  were  thickets  of  hazel,  many 
flowers,  tufts  of  heather,  and  little  clumps  of  young  fir-trees, 
budding  with  soft  paws.  It  was  rather  wet  everywhere, 
there  was  a  stream  running  down  at  the  bottom  of  the  valley, 
which  was  gloomy,  or  seemed  gloomy.      He  was  aware  that 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  115 

he  could  not  regain  his  consciousness,  that  he  was  moving  in 
a  sort  of  darkness. 

Yet  he  wanted  something.  He  was  happy  in  the  wet  hill- 
side, that  was  overgrown  and  obscure  with  bushes  and  flowers. 
He  wanted  to  touch  them  all,  to  saturate  himself  with  the 
touch  of  them  all.  He  took  off  his  clothes,  and  sat  down 
naked  among  the  primroses,  moving  his  feet  softly  among  the 
primroses,  his  legs,  his  knees,  his  arms  right  up  to  the  arm- 
pits, lying  down  and  letting  them  touch  his  belly,  his  breasts. 
It  was  such  a  fine,  cool,  subtle  touch  all  over  him,  he  seemed 
to  saturate  himself  with  their  contact. 

But  they  were  too  soft.  He  went  through  the  long  grass 
to  a  clump  of  young  fir-trees,  that  were  no  higher  than  a 
man.  The  soft  sharp  boughs  beat  upon  him,  as  he  moved 
in  keen  pangs  against  them,  threw  little  cold  showers  of  drops 
on  his  belly,  and  beat  his  loins  with  their  clusters  of  soft- 
sharp  needles.  There  was  a  thistle  which  pricked  him  vividly, 
but  not  too  much,  because  all  his  movements  were  too  dis- 
criminate and  soft.  To  lie  down  and  roll  in  the  sticky,  cool 
young  hyacinths,  to  lie  on  one's  belly  and  cover  one's  back 
with  handfuls  of  fine  wet  grass,  soft  as  a  breath,  soft  and 
more  delicate  and  more  beautiful  than  the  touch  of  any 
woman;  and  then  to  sting  one's  thigh  against  the  living  dark 
bristles  of  the  fir-boughs;  and  then  to  feel  the  light  whip  of 
the  hazel  on  one's  shoulders,  stinging,  and  then  to  clasp  the 
silvery  birch  trunk  against  one's  breast,  its  smoothness,  its 
hardness,  its  vital  knots  and  ridges — this  was  good,  this  was 
all  very  good,  very  satisfying.  Nothing  else  would  do,  noth- 
ing else  would  satisfy,  except  this  coolness  and  subtlety  of 
vegetation  travelling  into  one's  blood.  How  fortunate  he 
was,  that  there  was  this  lovely,  subtle,  responsive  vegetation, 
waiting  for  him,  as  he  waited  for  it;  how  fulfilled  he  was,  how 
happy! 

As  he  dried  himself  a  little  with  his  handkerchief,  he 
thought  about  Hermione  and  the  blow.  He  could  feel  a 
pain  on  the  side  of  his  head.  But  after  all,  what  did  it  mat- 
ter? What  did  Hermione  matter,  what  did  people  matter 
altogether?  There  was  this  perfect  cool  loneliness,  so  lovely 
and  fresh  and  unexplored.     Really,  what  a  mistake  he  had 


116  WOMEN  IN   LOVE 

made,  thinking  he  wanted  people,  thinking  he  wanted  a 
woman.  He  did  not  want  a  woman — not  in  the  least.  The 
leaves  and  the  primroses  and  the  trees,  they  were  really 
lovely  and  cool  and  desirable,  they  really  came  into  the 
blood  and  were  added  on  to  him.  He  was  enrichened  now 
immeasurably,  and  so  glad. 

It  was  quite  right  of  Hermione  to  want  to  kill  him.  What 
had  he  to  do  with  her?  Why  should  he  pretend  to  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  human  beings  at  all?  Here  was  his  world, 
he  wanted  nobody  and  nothing  but  the  lovely,  subtle,  respon- 
sive vegetation,  and  himself,  his  own  living  self. 

It  was  necessary  to  go  back  into  the  world.  That  was 
true.  But  that  did  not  matter,  so  one  knew  where  one  be- 
longed. He  knew  now  where  he  belonged.  He  knew  where 
to  plant  himself,  his  seed; — along  with  the  trees,  in  the  folds 
of  the  delicious  fresh-growing  leaves.  This  was  his  place, 
his  marriage  place.      The  world  was  extraneous. 

He  climbed  out  of  the  valley,  wondering  if  he  were  mad. 
But  if  so,  he  preferred  his  own  madness,  to  the  regular  sanity. 
He  rejoiced  in  his  own  madness,  he  was  free.  He  did  not 
want  that  old  sanity  of  the  world,  which  was  become  so 
repulsive.  He  rejoiced  in  the  new-found  world  of  his  mad- 
ness.    It  was  so  fresh  and  delicate  and  so  satisfying. 

As  for  the  certain  grief  he  felt  at  the  same  time,  in  his 
soul,  that  was  only  the  remains  of  an  old  ethic,  that  bade  a 
human  being  adhere  to  humanity.  But  he  was  weary  of  the 
old  ethic,  of  the  human  being,  and  of  humanity.  He  loved 
now  the  soft,  delicate  vegetation,  that  was  so  cool  and  per- 
fect. He  would  overlook  the  old  grief,  he  would  put  away  the 
old  ethic,  he  would  be  free  in  his  new  state. 

He  was  aware  of  the  pain  in  his  head  becoming  more  and 
more  difficult  every  minute.  He  was  walking  now  along  the 
road  to  the  nearest  station.  It  was  raining  and  he  had  no 
hat.  But  then  plenty  of  cranks  went  out  nowadays  without 
hats,  in  the  rain. 

He  wondered  again  how  much  of  his  heaviness  of  heart,  a 
certain  depression,  was  due  to  fear,  fear  lest  anybody  should 
have  seen  him  naked  lying  with  the  vegetation.  What  a 
dread  he  had  of  mankind,  of  othei  people!      It  amounted 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  117 

almost  to  horror,  to  a  sort  of  dream  terror — his  horror  of 
being  observed  by  some  other  people.  If  he  were  on  an 
island  like  Alexander  Selkirk,  with  only  the  creatures  and  the 
trees,  he  would  be  free  and  glad,  there  would  be  none  of 
this  heaviness,  this  misgiving.  He  could  love  the  vegetation 
and  be  quite  happy  and  unquestioned,  by  himself. 

He  had  better  send  a  note  to  Hermione:  she  might  trouble 
about  him,  and  he  did  not  want  the  onus  of  this.  So  at  the 
station,  he  wrote,  saying: 

"I  will  go  on  to  town — I  don't  want  to  come  back 
to  Breadalby  for  the  present.  But  it  is  quite  all 
right — I  don't  want  you  to  mind  having  biffed  me,  in 
the  least.  Tell  the  others  it  is  just  one  of  my  moods. 
You  were  quite  right,  to  biff  me — because  I  know  you 
wanted  to.     So  there's  the  end  of  it." 

In  the  train,  however,  he  felt  ill.  Every  motion  was 
insufferable  pain,  and  he  was  sick.  He  dragged  himself 
from  the  station  into  a  cab,  feeling  his  way  step  by  step, 
like  a  blind  man,  and  held  up  only  by  a  dim  will. 

For  a  week  or  two  he  was  ill,  but  he  did  not  let  Hermione 
know,  and  she  thought  he  was  sulking;  there  was  a  complete 
estrangement  between  them.  She  became  rapt,  abstracted 
in  her  conviction  of  exclusive  righteousness.  She  lived  in 
and  by  her  own  self-esteem,  conviction  of  her  own  Tightness 
of  spirit. 


CHAPTER  IX 

GOING  home  from  school  in  the  afternoon,  the  Brang- 
wen  girls  descended  the  hill  between  the  picturesque 
cottages  of  Willey  Green  till  they  came  to  the  railway 
crossing.  There  they  found  the  gate  shut,  because  the  col- 
liery train  was  rumbling  nearer.  They  could  hear  the  small 
locomotive  panting  hoarsely  as  it  advanced  with  caution 
between  the  embankments.  The  one-legged  man  in  the  little 
signal-hut  by  the  road  stared  out  from  his  security,  like  a 
crab  from  a  snail-shell. 

Whilst  the  two  girls  waited,  Gerald  Crich  trotted  up  on  a 
red  Arab  mare.  He  rode  well  and  softly,  pleased  with  the 
delicate  quivering  of  the  creature  between  his  knees.  And 
he  was  very  picturesque,  at  least  in  Gudrun's  eyes,  sitting 
soft  and  close  on  the  slender  red  mare,  whose  long  tail  flowed 
on  the  air.  He  saluted  the  two  girls,  and  drew  up  at  the 
crossing  to  wait  for  the  gate,  looking  down  the  railway  for 
the  approaching  train.  In  spite  of  her  ironic  smile  at  his 
picturesqueness,  Gudrun  liked  to  look  at  him.  He  was  well- 
set  and  easy,  his  face  with  its  warm  tan  showed  up  his  whit- 
ish, coarse  moustache,  and  his  blue  eyes  were  full  of  sharp 
light,  as  he  watched  the  distance. 

The  locomotive  chuffed  slowly  between  the  banks,  hidden. 
The  mare  did  not  like  it.  She  began  to  wince  away,  as  if  hurt 
by  the  unknown  noise.  But  Gerald  pulled  her  back  and  held 
her  head  to  the  gate.  The  sharp  blasts  of  the  chuffing  engine 
broke  with  more  and  more  force  on  her.  The  repeated  sharp 
blows  of  unknown,  terrifying  noise  struck  through  her  till 
she  was  rocking  with  terror.  She  recoiled  like  a  spring  let 
go.  But  a  glistening,  half-smiling  look  came  into  Gerald's 
face.      He  brought  her  back  again,  inevitably. 

The  noise  was  released,  the  little  locomotive  with  her 
clanking  steel  connecting-rod  emerged  on  the  high-road,  clank- 
ing sharply.  The  mare  rebounded  like  a  drop  of  water  from 
hot  iron.      Ursula  and  Gudrun  pressed  back  into  the  hedge, 

118 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  119 

in  fear.  But  Gerald  was  heavy  on  the  mare,  and  forced  her 
back.  It  seemed  as  if  he  sank  into  her  magnetically,  and 
could  thrust  her  back,  against  herself. 

"The  fool,"  cried  Ursula,  loudly.  "Why  doesn't  he  ride 
away  till  it's  gone  by?" 

Gudrun  was  looking  at  him  with  black-dilated,  spell- 
bound eyes.  But  he  sat  glistening  and  obstinate,  forcing  the 
wheeling  mare,  which  spun  and  swerved  like  a  wind,  and  yet 
could  not  get  out  of  the  grasp  of  his  will,  nor  escape  from  the 
mad  clamour  of  terror  that  resounded  through  her,  as  the 
trucks  thumped  slowly,  heavily,  horrifying,  one  after  the 
other,  one  pursuing  the  other,  over  the  rails  of  the  crossing. 

The  locomotive,  as  if  wanting  to  see  what  could  be  done, 
put  on  the  brakes,  and  back  came  the  trucks  rebounding  on 
the  iron  buffers,  striking  like  horrible  cymbals,  clashing  nearer 
and  nearer  in  frightful  strident  concussions.  The  mare 
opened  her  mouth  and  rose  slowly,  as  if  lifted  up  on  a  wind 
of  terror.  Then  suddenly  her  fore  feet  struck  out,  as  she 
convulsed  herself  utterly  away  from  the  horror.  Back  she 
went,  and  the  two  girls  clung  to  each  other,  feeling  she  must 
fall  backwards  on  top  of  him.  But  he  leaned  forward,  his 
face  shining  with  fixed  amusement,  and  at  last  he  brought 
her  down,  sank  her  down,  and  was  bearing  her  back  to  the 
mark.  But  as  strong  as  the  pressure  of  his  compulsion  was 
the  repulsion  of  her  utter  terror,  throwing  her  back  away 
from  the  railway,  so  that  she  spun  round  and  round,  on  two 
legs,  as  if  she  were  in  the  centre  of  some  whirlwind.  It  made 
Gudrun  faint  with  poignant  dizziness,  which  seemed  to  pene- 
trate to  her  heart. 
"No — !     No — !     Let  her  go!     Let  her  go,  you  fool,  you 

fool !"  cried  Ursula  at  the  top  of  her  voice,  completely 

outside  herself.  And  Gudrun  hated  her  bitterly  for  being 
outside  herself.  It  was  unendurable  that  Ursula's  voice  was 
so  powerful  and  naked. 

A  sharpened  look  came  on  Gerald's  face.  He  bit  himself 
down  on  the  mare  like  a  keen  edge  biting  home,  and  forced 
her  round.  She  roared  as  she  breathed,  her  nostrils  were 
two  wide,  hot  holes,  her  mouth  was  apart,  her  eyes  frenzied. 
It  was  a  repulsive  sight.     But  he  held  on  her  unrelaxed,  with 


120  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

an  almost  mechanical  relentlessness,  keen  jis  a  sword  press- 
ing in  to  her.  Both  man  and  horse  were  sweating  with  vio- 
lence.     Yet  he  seemed  calm  as  a  ray  of  cold  sunshine. 

Meanwhile  the  eternal  trucks  weie  rumbling  on,  very 
slowly,  treading  one  after  the  other,  one  after  the  other,  like 
a  disgusting  dream  that  has  no  end.  The  connecting  chains 
were  grinding  and  squeaking  as  the  tension  varied,  the  mare 
pawed  and  struck  away  mechanically  now,  her  terror  fulfilled 
in  her,  for  now  the  man  encompassed  her;  her  paws  were 
blind  and  pathetic  as  she  beat  the  air,  the  man  closed  round 
her,  and  brought  her  down,  almost  as  if  she  were  part  of  his 
own  physique. 

"And  she's  bleeding! — She's  bleeding!"  cried  Ursula,  frantic 
with  opposition  and  hatred  of  Gerald.  She  alone  understood 
him  perfectly,  in  pure  opposition. 

Gudrun  looked  and  saw  the  trickles  of  blood  on  the  sides 
of  the  mare,  and  she  turned  white.  And  then  on  the  very 
wound  the  bright  spurs  came  down,  pressing  relentlessly. 
The  world  reeled  and  passed  into  nothingness  for  Gudrun, 
she  could  not  know  any  more. 

When  she  recovered,  her  soul  was  calm  and  cold,  without 
feeling.  The  trucks  were  still  rumbling  by,  and  the  man  and 
the  mare  were  still  fighting.  But  she  herself  was  cold  and 
separate,  she  had  no  more  feeling  for  them.  She  was  quite 
hard  and  cold  and  indifferent. 

They  could  see  the  top  of  the  hooded  guard's-van  approach- 
ing, the  sound  of  the  trucks  was  diminishing,  there  was  hope 
of  relief  from  the  intolerable  noise.  The  heavy  panting  of 
the  half-stunned  mare  sounded  automatically,  the  man  seemed 
to  be  relaxing  confidently,  his  will  bright  and  unstained.  The 
guard's-van  came  up,  and  passed  slowly,  the  guard  staring 
out  in  his  transition  on  the  spectacle  in  the  road.  And, 
through  the  man  in  the  closed  wagon  Gudrun  could  see  the 
whole  scene  spectacularly,  isolated  and  momentary,  like  a 
vision  isolated  in  eternity. 

Lovely,  grateful  silence  seemed  to  trail  behind  the  reced- 
ing train.  How  sweet  the  silence  was!  Ursula  looked  with 
hatred  on  the  buffers  of  the  diminishing  wagon.  The  gate- 
keeper stood  ready  at  the  door  of     his  hut,  to  proceed  to 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  121 

open  the  gate.  But  Gudrun  sprang  suddenly  forward,  in 
front  of  the  struggling  horse,  threw  off  the  latch  and  flung 
the  gates  asunder,  throwing  one  half  to  the  keeper,  and  run- 
ning with  the  other  half  forwards.  Gerald  suddenly  let  go 
the  horse  and  leaped  forwards,  almost  on  to  Gudrun.  She 
was  not  afraid.  As  he  jerked  aside  the  mare's  head,  Gudrun 
cried,  in  a  strange,  high  voice,  like  a  gull,  or  like  a  witch 
screaming  out  from  the  side  of  the  road: 

"I  should  think  you're  proud." 

The  words  were  distinct  and  formed.  The  man,  twisting 
aside  on  his  dancing  horse,  looked  at  her  in  some  surprise, 
some  wondering  interest.  Then  the  mare's  hoofs  had  danced 
three  times  on  the  drum-like  sleepers  of  the  crossing  and  man 
and  horse  were  bounding  springily,  unequally  up  the  road. 

The  two  girls  watched  them  go.  The  gate-keeper  hobbled 
thudding  over  the  logs  of  the  crossing,  with  his  wooden  leg. 
He  had  fastened  the  gate.  Then  he  also  turned,  and  called 
to  the  girls: 

"A  masterful  young  jockey,  that; — '11  have  his  own  road, 
if  ever  anybody  would." 

"Yes,"  cried  Ursula,  in  her  hot,  overbearing  voice.  "Why 
couldn't  he  take  the  horse  away,  till  the  trucks  had  gone  by? 
He's  a  fool,  and  a  bully.  Does  he  think  it's  manly,  to  tor- 
ture a  horse?  It's  a  living  thing,  why  should  he  bully  it 
and  torture  it?" 

There  was  a  pause,  then  the  gate-keeper  shook  his  head, 
and  replied: 

"Yes,  it's  as  nice  a  little  mare  as  you  could  set  eyes  on — 
beautiful  little  thing,  beautiful. — Now  you  couldn't  see  his 
father  treat  any  animal  like  that — not  you.  They're  as  dif- 
ferent as  they  welly  can  be,  Gerald  Crich  and  his  father — 
two  different  men,  different  made." 

Then  there  was  a  pause. 

"But  why  does  he  do  it?"  cried  Ursula,  "why  does  he? 
Does  he  think  he's  grand,  when  he's  bullied  a  sensitive  crea- 
ture, ten  times  as  sensitive  as  himself?" 

Again  there  was  a  cautious  pause.  Then  again  the  man 
shook  his  head,  as  if  he  would  say  nothing,  but  would  think 
the  more. 


122  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"I  expect  he's  got  to  train  the  mare  to  stand  to  any- 
thing," he  replied.  "A  pure-bred  Harab — not  the  sort  of 
breed  as  is  used  to  round  here — different  sort  from  our  sort 
altogether.      They  say  as  he  got  her  from  Constantinople." 

"He  would!"  said  Ursula.  "He'd  better  have  left  her  to 
the  Turks,  I'm  sure  they  would  have  had  more  decency 
towards  her." 

The  man  went  in  to  drink  his  can  of  tea,  the  girls  went  on 
down  the  lane,  that  was  deep  in  soft  black  dust.  Gudrun 
was  as  if  numbed  in  her  mind  by  the  sense  of  indomitable 
soft  weight  of  the  man,  bearing  down  into  the  living  body 
of  the  horse;  the  strong,  indomitable  thighs  of  the  blond  man 
clenching  the  palpitating  body  of  the  mare  into  pure  control; 
a  sort  of  soft,  white  magnetic  domination  from  the  loins  and 
thighs  and  calves,  enclosing  and  encompassing  the  mare 
heavily  into  unutterable  subordination,  soft  blood-subordina- 
tion, terrible. 

On  the  left,  as  the  girls  walked  silently,  the  coal-mine 
lifted  its  great  mounds  and  its  patterned  head-stocks,  the 
black  railway  with  the  trucks  at  rest  looked  like  a  harbour 
just  below,  a  large  bay  of  railroad  with  anchored  wagons. 

Near  the  second  level-crossing,  that  went  over  many 
bright  rails,  was  a  farm  belonging  to  the  collieries,  and  a 
great  round  globe  of  iron,  a  disused  boiler,  huge  and  rusty 
and  perfectly  round,  stood  silently  in  a  paddock  by  the  road. 
The  hens  were  pecking  round  it,  some  chickens  were  balanced 
on  the  drinking-trough,  wagtails  flew  away  in  among  trucks, 
from  the  water. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  wide  crossing,  by  the  road-side, 
was  a  heap  of  pale-grey  stones  for  mending  the  roads,  and  a 
cart  standing,  and  a  middle-aged  man  with  whiskers  round 
his  face  was  leaning  on  his  shovel,  talking  to  a  young  man 
in  gaiters,  who  stood  by  the  horse's  head.  Both  men  were 
facing  the  crossing. 

They  saw  the  two  girls  appear,  «"iall,  brilliant  figures  in 
the  near  distance,  in  the  strong  ligh..  of  the  late  afternoon. 
Both  wore  light,  gay  summer  dresses,  Ursula  had  an  orange- 
coloured  knitted  coat,  Gudrun  a  pale  yellow,  Ursula  wore 
canary  yellow  stockings,  Gudrun  bright  rose,  the  figures  of 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  123 

the  two  women  seemed  to  glitter  in  progress  over  the  wide 
bay  of  the  railway  crossing,  white  and  orange  and  yellow  and 
rose  glittering  in  motion  across  a  hot  world  silted  with  coal- 
dust. 

The  two  men  stood  quite  still  in  the  heat,  watching.  The 
elder  was  a  short,  hard-faced  energetic  man  of  middle  age, 
the  younger  a  labourer  of  twenty-three  or  so.  They  stood 
in  silence  watching  the  advance  of  the  sisters.  They  watched 
whilst  the  girls  drew  near,  and  whilst  they  passed,  and  whilst 
they  receded  down  the  dusty  road,  that  had  dwellings  on  one 
side,  and  dusty  young  corn  on  the  other. 

Then  the  elder  man,  with  the  whiskers  round  his  face,  said 
in  a  prurient  manner  to  the  young  man: 

"What  price  that,  eh?     She'll  do,  won't  she?" 

"Which?"  asked  the  young  man,  eagerly,  with  a  laugh. 

"Her  with  the  red  stockings.  What  d'  you  say? — I'd  give 
my  week's  wages  for  five  minutes; — what! — just  for  five 
minutes." 

Again  the  young  man  laughed. 

"Your  missis  *ud  have  summat  to  say  to  you,"  he  replied. 

Gudrun  had  turned  round  and  looked  at  the  two  men. 
They  were  to  her  sinister  creatures,  standing  watching  after 
her,  by  the  heap  of  pale-grey  slag.  She  loathed  the  man  with 
whiskers  round  his  face. 

"You're  first  class,  you  are,"  the  man  said  to  her,  and  to 
the  distance. 

"Do  you  think  it  would  be  worth  a  week's  wages?"  said 
the  younger  man,  musing. 

"Do  I?     I'd  put  'em  bloody- well  down  this  second — " 

The  younger  man  looked  after  Gudrun  and  Ursula  objec- 
tively, as  if  he  wished  to  calculate  what  there  might  be,  that 
was  worth  his  week's  wages.  He  shook  his  head  with  fatal 
misgiving. 

"No,"  he  said.     "It's  not  worth  that  to  me." 

"Isn't?"  said  the  old  man.     "By  God,  if  it  isn't  to  me!" 

And  he  went  on  shovelling  his  stones. 

The  girls  descended  between  the  houses  with  slate  roofs 
and  blackish  brick  walls.  The  heavy  gold  glamour  of  ap- 
proaching sunset  lay  over  all  the  colliery  district,  and  the 


124  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

ugliness  overlaid  with  beauty  was  like  a  narcotic  to  the  senses. 
On  the  roads  silted  with  black  dust,  the  rich  light  fell  more 
warmly,  more  heavily,  over  all  the  amorphous  squalour  a  kind 
of  magic  was  cast,  from  the  glowing  close  of  day. 

"It  has  a  foul  kind  of  beauty,  this  place,"  said  Gudrun, 
evidently  suffering  from  fascination.  "Can't  you  feel  in  some 
way,  a  thick,  hot  attraction  in  it?  I  can.  And  it  quite 
stupefies  me." 

They  were  passing  between  blocks  of  miner's  dwellings. 
In  the  back  yards  of  several  dwellings,  a  miner  could  be  seen 
washing  himself  in  the  open  on  this  hot  evening,  naked  down 
to  the  loins,  his  great  trousers  of  moleskin  slipping  almost 
away.  Miners  already  cleaned  were  sitting  on  their  heels, 
with  their  backs  near  the  walls,  talking  and  silent  in  pure 
physical  well-being,  tired,  and  taking  physical  rest.  Their 
voices  sounded  out  with  strong  intonation,  and  the  broad 
dialect  was  curiously  caressing  to  the  blood.  It  seemed  to 
envelop  Gudrun  in  a  labourer's  caress,  there  was  in  the  whole 
atmosphere  a  resonance  of  physical  men,  a  glamourous  thick- 
ness of  labour  and  maleness,  surcharged  in  the  air.  But  it 
was  universal  in  the  district,  and  therefore  unnoticed  by  the 
inhabitants. 

To  Gudrun,  however,  it  was  potent  and  half-repulsive. 
She  could  never  tell  why  Beldover  was  so  utterly  different 
from  London  and  the  south,  why  one's  whole  feelings  were 
different,  why  one  seemed  to  live  in  another  sphere.  Now 
she  realised  that  this  was  the  world  of  powerful,  underworld 
men  who  spent  most  of  their  time  in  the  darkness.  In  their 
voices  she  could  hear  the  voluptuous  resonance  of  darkness, 
the  strong,  dangerous  underworld,  mindless,  inhuman.  They 
sounded  also  like  strange  machines,  heavy,  oiled.  The  volup- 
tuousness was  like  that  of  machinery,  cold  and  iron. 

It  was  the  same  every  evening  when  she  came  home,  she 
seemed  to  move  through  a  wave  of  disruptive  force,  that 
was  given  off  from  the  presence  of  thousands  of  vigorous, 
underworld,  half-automatised  colliers,  and  which  went  to  the 
brain  and  the  heart,  awaking  a  fatal  desire,  and  a  fatal  cal- 
lousness. 

There  came  over  her  a  nostalgia  for  the  place.     She  hated 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  125 

it,  she  knew  how  utterly  cut  off  it  was,  how  hideous  and  how 
sickeningly  mindless.  Sometimes  she  beat  her  wings  like  a 
new  Daphne,  turning  not  into  a  tree  but  a  machine.  And 
yet,  she  was  overcome  by  the  nostalgia.  She  struggled  to 
get  more  and  more  into  accord  with  the  atmosphere  of  the 
place,  she  craved  to  get  her  satisfaction  of  it. 

She  felt  herself  drawn  out  at  evening  into  the  main  street 
of  the  town,  that  was  uncreated  and  ugly,  and  yet  surcharged 
with  this  same  potent  atmosphere  of  intense,  dark  callousness. 
There  were  always  miners  about.  They  moved  with  their 
strange,  distorted  dignity,  a  certain  beauty,  and  unnatural 
stillness  in  their  bearing,  a  look  of  abstraction  and  half  resig- 
nation in  their  pale,  often  gaunt  faces.  They  belonged  to 
another  world,  they  had  a  strange  glamour,  their  voices  were 
full  of  an  intolerable  deep  resonance,  like  a  machine's  burring, 
a  music  more  maddening  than  the  siren's  long  ago. 

She  found  herself,  with  the  rest  of  the  common  women, 
drawn  out  on  Friday  evenings  to  the  little  market.  Friday 
was  pay-day  for  the  colliers,  and  Friday  night  was  market 
night.  Every  woman  was  abroad,  every  man  was  out,  shop- 
ping with  his  wife,  or  gathering  with  his  pals.  The  pave- 
ments were  dark  for  miles  around  with  people  coming  in,  the 
little  market-place  on  the  crown  of  the  hill,  and  the  main 
street  of  Beldover  were  black  with  thickly-crowded  men  and 
women. 

It  was  dark,  the  market-place  was  hot  with  kerosene 
flares,  which  threw  a  ruddy  light  on  the  grave  faces  of  the 
purchasing  wives,  and  on  the  pale  abstract  faces  of  the  men. 
The  air  was  full  of  the  sound  of  criers  and  of  people  bilking, 
thick  streams  of  people  moved  on  the  pavement  towards  the 
solid  crowd  of  the  market.  The  shops  were  blazing  and 
packed  with  women,  in  the  streets  were  men,  mostly  men, 
miners  of  all  ages.  Money  was  spent  with  almost  lavish 
freedom. 

The  carts  that  came  could  not  pass  through.  They  had 
to  wait,  the  driver  calling  and  shouting,  till  the  dense  crowd 
would  make  way.  Everywhere,  young  fellows  from  the  out- 
lying district  were  making  conversation  with  the  girls,  stand- 
ing in  tlie  road  and  at  the  corners.      The  doors  of  the  public 


1£6  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

houses  were  open  and  full  of  light,  men  passed  in  and  out  in 
a  continual  stream;  everywhere  men  were  calling  out  to  one 
another,  or  crossing  to  meet  one  another,  or  standing  in  little 
gangs  and  circles,  discussing,  endlessly  discussing.  The 
sense  of  talk,  buzzing,  jarring,  half-secret,  the  endless  mining 
and  political  wrangling,  vibrated  in  the  air  like  discordant 
machinery.  And  it  was  their  voices  which  affected  Gudrun 
almost  to  swooning.  They  aroused  a  strange,  nostalgic  ache 
of  desire,  something  almost  demoniacal,  never  to  be  fulfilled. 

Like  any  other  common  girl  of  the  district,  Gudrun  strolled 
up  and  down,  up  and  down  the  length  of  the  brilliant  two- 
hundred  paces  of  the  pavement  nearest  the  market-place. 
She  knew  it  was  a  vulgar  thing  to  do;  her  father  and  mother 
could  not  bear  it;  but  the  nostalgia  came  over  her,  she  must 
be  among  the  people.  Sometimes  she  sat  among  the  louts 
in  the  cinema;  rakish-looking,  unattractive  louts  they  were. 
Yet  she  must  be  among  them. 

And,  like  any  other  common  lass,  she  found  her  'boy.' 
It  was  an  electrician,  one  of  the  electricians  introduced  accord- 
ing to  Gerald's  new  scheme.  He  was  an  earnest,  clever  man, 
a  scientist  with  a  passion  for  sociology.  He  lived  alone  in  a 
cottage,  in  lodgings,  in  Willey  Green.  He  was  a  gentleman, 
and  sufficiently  well-to-do.  His  landlady  spread  the  reports 
about  him;  he  would  have  a  large  wooden  tub  in  his  bedroom, 
and  every  time  he  came  in  from  work,  he  would  have  pails 
and  pails  of  water  brought  up,  to  bathe  in,  then  he  put  on 
clean  shirt  and  under-clothing  every  day,  and  clean  silk  socks; 
fastidious  and  exacting  he  was  in  these  respects,  but  in  every 
other  way,  most  ordinary  and  unassuming. 

Gudrun  knew  all  these  things.  The  Brangwen's  house 
was  one  to  which  the  gossip  came  naturally  and  inevitably. 
Palmer  was  in  the  first  place  a  friend  of  Ursula's.  But  in 
his  pale,  elegant,  serious  face  there  showed  the  same  nostalgia 
that  Gudrun  felt.  He  too  must  walk  up  and  down  the  street 
on  Friday  evening.  So  he  walked  with  Gudrun,  and  a  friend- 
ship was  struck  up  between  them.  But  he  was  not  in  love 
with  Gudrun;  he  really  wanted  Ursula,  but  for  some  strange 
reason,  nothing  could  happen  between  her  and  him.  He 
liked  to  have  Gudrun  about,  as  a  fellow-mind — but  that  was 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  127 

all.  And  she  had  no  real  feeling  for  him.  He  was  a  scientist, 
he  had  to  have  a  woman  to  back  him.  But  he  was  really 
impersonal,  he  had  the  fineness  of  an  elegant  piece  of  ma- 
chinery. He  was  too  cold,  too  destructive  to  care  really  for 
women,  too  great  an  egoist.  He  was  polarised  by  the  men. 
Individually  he  detested  and  despised  them.  In  the  mass 
they  fascinated  him,  as  machinery  fascinated  him.  They 
were  a  new  sort  of  machinery  to  him — but  incalculable,  in- 
calculable. 

So  Gudrun  strolled  the  streets  with  Palmer,  or  went  to 
the  cinema  with  him.  And  his  long,  pale,  rather  elegant  face 
flickered  as  he  made  his  sarcastic  remarks.  There  they 
were,  the  two  of  them:  two  elegants  in  one  sense;  in  the  other 
sense,  two  units,  absolutely  adhering  to  the  people  teeming 
with  the  distorted  colliers.  The  same  secret  seemed  to  be 
working  in  the  souls  of  all  alike,  Gudrun,  Palmer,  the  rakish 
young  bloods,  the  gaunt,  middle-aged  men.  All  had  a  secret 
sense  of  power,  and  of  inexpressible  destructiveness,  and  of 
fatal  half-heartedness,  a  sort  of  rottenness  in  the  will. 

Sometimes  Gudrun  would  start  aside,  see  it  all,  see  how 
she  was  sinking  in.  And  then  she  was  filled  with  a  fury  of 
contempt  and  anger.  She  felt  she  was  sinking  into  one  mass 
with  the  rest — all  so  close  and  intermingled  and  breathless. 
It  was  horrible.  She  stifled.  She  prepared  for  flight,  fever- 
ishly she  flew  to  her  work.  But  soon  she  let  go.  She  started 
off  into  the  country — the  darkish,  glamourous  country.  The 
spell  was  beginning  to  work  again. 


CHAPTER  X 

ONE  morning  the  sisters  were  sketching  by  the  side  of 
Willey  Water,  at  the  remote  end  of  the  lake.  Gudrun 
had  waded  out  to  a  gravelly  shoal,  and  was  seated  like 
a  Buddhist,  staring  fixedly  at  the  water-plants  that  rose  suc- 
culent from  the  mud  of  the  low  shores.  What  she  could  see 
was  mud,  soft,  oozy,  watery  mud,  and  from  its  festering  chill, 
water-plants  rose  up,  thick  and  cool  and  fleshy,  very  straight 
and  turgid,  thrusting  out  their  leaves  at  right  angles,  and 
having  dark,  lurid  colours,  dark  green  and  blotches  of  black- 
purple  and  bronze.  But  she  could  feel  their  turgid,  fleshy 
structure  as  in  a  sensuous  vision,  she  knew  how  they  rose 
out  of  the  mud,  she  knew  how  they  thrust  out  from  them- 
selves, how  they  stood  stiff  and  succident  against  the  air. 

Ursula  was  watching  the  butterflies,  of  which  there  were 
dozens  near  the  water,  little  blue  ones  suddenly  snapping  out 
of  nothing  into  a  jewel-life,  a  large  black-and-red  one  standing 
upon  a  flower  and  breathing  with  his  soft  wings,  intoxicat- 
ingly,  breathing  pure,  ethereal  sunshine;  two  white  ones 
wrestling  in  the  low  air;  there  was  a  halo  round  them;  ah, 
when  they  came  tumbling  nearer  they  were  orange-tips,  and 
it  was  the  orange  that  had  made  the  halo.  Ursula  rose  and 
drifted  away,  unconscious  like  the  butterflies. 

Gudrun,  absorbed  in  a  stupour  of  apprehension  of  surging 
water-plants,  sat  crouched  on  the  shoal,  drawing,  not  looking 
up  for  a  long  time,  and  then  staring  unconsciously,  absorbedly 
at  the  rigid,  naked,  succulent  stems.  Her  feet  were  bare, 
her  hat  lay  on  the  bank  opposite. 

She  started  out  of  her  trance,  hearing  the  knocking  of 
oars.  She  looked  round.  There  was  a  boat  with  a  gaudy 
Japanese  parasol,  and  a  man  in  white,  rowing.  The  woman 
was  Hermione,  and  the  man  was  Gerald.  She  knew  it  in- 
stantly. And  instantly  she  perished  in  the  keen  frisson  of 
anticipation,  an  electric  vibration  in  her  veins,  intense,  much 

128 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  1«9 

more  intense  than  that  which  was  always  humming  low  in 
the  atmosphere  of  Beldover. 

Gerald  was  her  escape  from  the  heavy  slough  of  the  pale, 
underworld,  automatic  colliers.  He  started  out  of  the  mud. 
He  was  master.  She  saw  his  back,  the  movement  of  his  white 
loins.  But  not  that — it  was  the  whiteness  he  seemed  to 
enclose  as  he  bent  forwards,  rowing.  He  seemed  to  stoop 
to  something.  His  glistening,  whitish  hair  seemed  like  the 
electricity  of  the  sky. 

"There's  Gudrun,"  came  Hermione's  voice  floating  dis- 
tinct over  the  water.  "We  will  go  and  speak  to  her.  Do 
you  mind?" 

Gerald  looked  round  and  saw  the  girl  standing  by  the 
water's  edge,  looking  at  him.  He  pulled  the  boat  towards 
her,  magnetically,  without  thinking  of  her.  In  his  world, 
his  conscious  world,  she  was  still  nobody.  He  knew  that 
Hermione  had  a  curious  pleasure  in  treading  down  all  the 
social  differences,  at  least  apparently,  and  he  left  it  to  her. 

"How  do  you  do,  Gudrun?"  sang  Hermione,  using  the 
Christian  name  in  the  fashionable  manner.  "What  are  you 
doing?" 

"How  do  you  do,  Hermione?     I  was  sketching." 

"Were  you?"  The  boat  drifted  nearer,  till  the  keel 
ground  on  the  bank.  "May  we  see?  I  should  like  to  so 
much." 

It  was  no  use  resisting  Hermione's  deliberate  intention. 

"W.ll."  said  Gudrun  reluctantly,  for  she  always  hated  to 
have  her  unfinished  work  exposed — "there's  nothing  in  the 
least  interesting." 

"Nn't  there?      But  let  me  see,  will  you?" 

Gudrun  reached  out  the  sketch-book,  Gerald  stretched 
from  the  boat  to  take  it.  And  as  he  did  so,  he  remembered 
Gudrun's  last  words  to  him,  and  her  face  lifted  up  to  him 
as  he  sat  on  the  swerving  horse.  An  intensification  of  pride 
went  over  his  nerves,  becaase  he  felt,  in  some  way  she  was 
compelled  by  him.  The  exchange  of  feeling  between  them 
was  strong  and  apart  from  their  consciousness. 

Ami  as  if  in  a  spell.  Gudrun  was  aware  of  his  body,  stretch- 
ing and  surging  like  the  marsh-fire,  stretching  towards  her, 


130  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

his  hand  coming  straight  forward  like  a  stem.  Her  volup- 
tuous, acute  apprehension  of  him  made  the  blood  faint  in 
her  veins,  her  mind  went  dim  and  unconscious.  And  he 
rocked  on  the  water  perfectly,  like  the  rocking  of  phosphor- 
escence. He  looked  round  at  the  boat.  It  was  drifting  off 
a  little.  He  lifted  the  oar  to  bring  it  back.  And  the  exquisite 
pleasure  of  slowly  arresting  the  boat,  in  the  heavy-soft  water, 
was  complete  as  a  swoon. 

"That's  what  you  have  done,"  said  Hermione,  looking 
searchingly  at  the  plants  on  the  shore,  and  comparing  with 
Gudrun's  drawing.  Gudrun  looked  round  in  the  direction  of 
Hermione's  long,  pointing  finger.  "That  is  it,  isn't  it?" 
repeated  Hermione  needing  confirmation. 

"Yes,"  said  Gudrun  automatically,  taking  no  real  heed. 

"Let  me  look,"  said  Gerald,  reaching  forward  for  the  book. 
But  Hermione  ignored  him,  he  must  not  presume,  before  she 
had  finished.  But  he,  his  will  as  unthwarted  and  as  unflinch- 
ing as  her's,  stretched  forward  till  he  touched  the  book.  A 
little  shock,  a  storm  of  revulsion  against  him,  shook  Her- 
mione unconsciously.  She  released  the  book  when  he  had 
not  properly  got  it,  and  it  tumbled  against  the  side  of  the 
boat  and  bounced  into  the  water. 

"There!"  sang  Hermione,  with  a  strange  ring  of  malevolent 
victory.  "I'm  so  sorry,  so  awfully  sorry.  Can't  you  get  it, 
Gerald?" 

This  last  was  said  in  a  note  of  anxious  sneering  that  made 
Gerald's  veins  tingle  with  fine  hate  for  her.  He  leaned  far 
out  of  the  boat,  reaching  down  in  to  the  water,  He  could 
feel  his  position  was  ridiculous,  his  loins  exposed  behind  him. 

"It  is  of  no  importance,"  came  the  strong,  clanging  voice 
of  Gudrun.  She  seemed  to  touch  him.  But  he  reached 
further,  the  boat  swayed  violently.  Hermione,  however,  re- 
mained unperturbed.  He  grasped  the  book,  under  the 
water,  and  brought  it  up,  dripping. 

"I'm  so  dreadfully  sorry — so  dreadfully  sorry,"  repeated 
Hermione.      "I'm  afraid  it  was  all  my  fault." 

"It's  of  no  importance — really,  I  assure  you — it  doesn't 
matter  in  the  least,"  said  Gudrun  loudly,  with  emphasis,  her 
face  flushed  scarlet.      And  she  held  out  her  hand  impatiently 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  131 

for  the  wet  book,  to  have  done  with  the  scene.  Gerald  gave 
it  to  her.     He  was  not  quite  himself. 

"I'm  so  dreadfully  sorry,"  repeated  Hermione,  till  both 
Gerald  and  Gudrun  were  exasperated.  "Is  there  nothing 
that  can  be  done?" 

"In  what  way?"  asked  Gudrun,  with  cool  irony. 

"Can't  we  save  the  drawings?" 

There  was  a  moment's  pause,  wherein  Gudrun  made  evi- 
dent all  her  refutation  of  Hermione's  persistence. 

"I  assure  you,"  said  Gudrun,  with  cutting  distinctness, 
"the  drawings  are  quite  as  good  as  ever  they  were,  for  my 
purpose.      I  want  them  only  for  reference." 

"But  can't  I  give  you  a  new  book?  I  wish  you'd  let  me 
do  that.     I  feel  so  truly  sorry.      I  feel  it  was  all  my  fault." 

"As  far  as  I  saw,"  said  Gudrun,  "it  wasn't  your  fault  at 
all.  If  there  was  any  fault,  it  was  Mr.  Crich's.  But  the 
whole  thing  is  entirely  trivial,  and  it  really  is  ridiculous  to 
take  any  notice  of  it." 

Gerald  watched  Gudrun  closely,  whilst  she  repulsed  Her- 
mione. There  was  a  body  of  cold  power  in  her.  He  watched 
her  with  an  insight  that  amounted  to  clairvoyance.  He  saw 
her  a  dangerous,  hostile  spirit,  that  could  stand  undiminished 
and  unabated.  It  was  so  finished,  and  of  such  perfect  ges- 
ture, moreover. 

"I'm  awfully  glad  if  it  doesn't  matter,"  he  said;  "if  there's 
no  real  harm  done." 

She  looked  back  at  him,  with  her  fine  blue  eyes,  and  sig- 
nalled full  into  his  spirit,  as  she  said,  her  voice  ringing  with 
intimacy  almost  caressive  now  it  was  addressed  to  him: 

"Of  course,  it  doesn't  matter  in  the  least." 

The  bond  was  established  between  them,  in  that  look,  in 
her  tone.  In  her  tone,  she  made  the  understanding  clear — 
they  were  of  the  same  kind,  he  and  she,  a  sort  of  diabolic 
freemasonry  subsisted  between  them.  Henceforward,  she 
knew,  she  had  her  power  over  him.  Wherever  they  met, 
they  would  be  secretly  associated.  And  he  would  be  help- 
less in  the  association  with  her.     Her  soul  exulted. 

"Good-bye!  I'm  so  glad  you  forgive  me.  Goo-ood- 
bye!" 


132  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

Hermione  sang  her  farewell,  and  waved  her  hand.  Gerald 
automatically  took  the  oar  and  pushed  off.  But  he  was 
looking  all  the  time,  with  a  glimmering,  subtly  smiling  admir- 
ation in  his  eyes,  at  Gudrun,  who  stood  on  the  shoal  shaking 
the  wet  book  in  her  hand.  She  turned  away  and  ignored 
the  receding  boat.  But  Gerald  looked  back  as  he  rowed, 
beholding  her,  forgetting  what  he  was  doing. 

"Aren't  we  going  too  much  to  the  left?"  sang  Hermione, 
as  she  sat  ignored  under  her  coloured  parasol. 

Gerald  looked  round  without  replying,  the  oars  balanced 
and  glancing  in  the  sun. 

"I  think  it's  all  right,"  he  said  good-humouredly,  beginning 
to  row  again  without  thinking  of  what  he  was  doing.  And 
Hermione  disliked  him  extremely  for  his  good-humoured 
obliviousness;    she  was  nullified,  she  could  not  regain  ascend- 


CHAPTER  XI 

MEANWHILE  Ursula  had  wandered  on  from  Willey 
Water  along  the  course  of  the  bright  little  stream. 
The  afternoon  was  full  of  larks'  singing.  On  the 
bright  hill-sides  was  a  subdued  smoulder  of  gorse.  A  few 
forget-me-nots  flowered  by  the  water.  There  was  a  roused- 
ness  and  a  glancing  everywhere. 

She  strayed  absorbedly  on,  over  the  brooks.  She  wanted 
to  go  to  the  mill-pond  above.  The  big  mill-house  was  de- 
serted, save  for  a  labourer  and  his  wife  who  lived  in  the 
kitchen.  So  she  passed  through  the  empty  farm-yard  and 
through  the  wilderness  of  a  garden,  and  mounted  the  bank 
by  the  sluice.  When  she  got  to  the  top,  to  see  the  old,  vel- 
vet y  surface  of  the  pond  before  her,  she  noticed  a  man  on 
the  bank,  tinkering  with  a  punt.  It  was  Birkin  sawing  and 
hammering  away. 

She  stood  at  the  head  of  the  sluice,  looking  at  him.  He 
was  unaware  of  anybody's  presence.  He  looked  very  busy, 
like  a  wild  animal,  active  and  intent.  She  felt  she  ought  to 
go  away,  he  would  not  want  her.  He  seemed  to  be  so  much 
occupied.  But  she  did  not  want  to  go  away.  Therefore  she 
moved  along  the  bank  till  he  would  look  up. 

Which  he  soon  did.  The  moment  he  saw  her,  he  dropped 
his  tools  and  came  forward,  saying: 

"How  do  you  do?  I'm  making  the  punt  water-tight. 
Tell  me  if  you  think  it  is  right." 

She  went  along  with  him. 

"You  are  your  father's  daughter,  so  you  can  tell  me  if  it 
will  do,"  he  said. 

She  bent  to  look  at  the  patched  punt. 

"I  am  sure  I  am  my  father's  daughter,"  she  said,  fearful 
of  having  to  judge.  "But  I  don't  know  anything  about  car- 
pentry.     It  look*  right,  don't  you  think?" 

"Yea,  I  think.      I  hope  it  won't  let  me  to  the  bottom, 

133 


134  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

that's  all.  Though  even  so,  it  isn't  a  great  matter,  I 
should  come  up  again.  Help  me  to  get  it  into  the  water,  will 
you?" 

With  combined  efforts  they  turned  over  the  heavy  punt 
and  set  it  afloat. 

"Now,"  he  said,  "I'll  try  it  and  you  can  watch  what 
happens.     Then  if  it  carries,  I'll  take  you  over  to  the  island." 

"Do,"  she  cried,  watching  anxiously. 

The  pond  was  large,  and  had  that  perfect  stillness  and  the 
dark  lustre  of  very  deep  water.  There  were  two  small  islands 
overgrown  with  bushes  and  a  few  trees,  towards  the  middle. 
Birkin  pushed  himself  off,  and  veered  clumsily  in  the  pond. 
Luckily  the  punt  drifted  so  that  he  could  catch  hold  of  a 
willow  bough,  and  pull  in  to  the  island. 

"Rather  overgrown,"  he  said,  looking  into  the  interior, 
"but  very  nice.  I'll  come  and  fetch  you.  The  boat  leaks 
a  little." 

In  a  moment  he  was  with  her  again,  and  she  stepped  into 
the  wet  punt. 

"It'll  float  us  all  right,"  he  said,  and  manoeuvred  again 
to  the  island. 

They  landed  under  a  willow  tree.  She  shrank  from  the 
little  jungle  of  rank  plants  before  her,  evil-smelling  fig-wort 
and  hemlock.      But  he  explored  into  it. 

"I  shall  mow  this  down,"  he  said,  "and  then  it  will  be 
romantic — like  Paul  et  Virginie." 

"Yes,  one  could  have  lovely  Watteau  picnics  here,"  cried 
Ursula  with  enthusiasm. 

His  face  darkened. 

"I  don't  want  Watteau  picnics  here,"  he  said. 

"Only  your  Virginie,"  she  laughed. 

"Virginie  enough,"  he  smiled  wryly.  "No,  I  don't  want 
her  either." 

Ursula  looked  at  him  closely.  She  had  not  seen  him  since 
Breadalby.  He  was  very  thin  and  hollow,  with  a  ghastly 
look  in  his  face. 

"You  have  been  ill,  haven't  you?"  she  asked,  rather 
repulsed. 

"Yes,"  he  replied  coldly. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  1S5 

They  had  sat  down  under  the  willow  tree,  and  were  look- 
ing at  the  pond,  from  their  retreat  on  the  island. 

"Has  it  made  you  frightened?"  she  asked. 

"What  of?"  he  asked,  turning  his  eyes  to  look  at  her. 
Something  in  him,  inhuman  and  unmitigated,  disturbed  her, 
and  shook  her  out  of  her  ordinary  self. 

"It  is  frightening  to  be  very  ill,  isn't  it?"  she  said. 

"It  isn't  pleasant,"  he  said.  "Whether  one  is  really 
afraid  of  death,  or  not,  I  have  never  decided.  In  one  mood, 
not  a  bit,  in  another,  very  much." 

"But  doesn't  it  make  you  feel  ashamed?  I  think  it  makes 
one  so  ashamed,  to  be  ill — illness  is  so  terribly  humiliating, 
don't  you  think?" 

He  considered  for  some  minutes. 

"May-be,"  he  said.  "Though  one  knows  all  the  time 
one's  life  isn't  really  right,  at  the  source.  That's  the  humili- 
ation. I  don't  see  that  the  illness  counts  so  much,  after 
that.  One  is  ill  because  one  doesn't  live  properly — can't. 
It's  the  failure  to  live  that  makes  one  ill,  and  humiliates  one." 

"But  do  you  fail  to  live?"  she  asked,  almost  jeering. 

"Why,  yes — I  don't  make  much  of  a  success  of  my  days. 
One  seems  always  to  be  bumping  one's  nose  against  the  blank 
wall  ahead." 

Ursula  laughed.  She  was  frightened,  and  when  she  was 
frightened  she  always  laughed  and  pretended  to  be  jaunty. 

"Your  poor  nose!"  she  said,  looking  at  that  feature  of 
his  face. 

"No  wonder  it's  ugly,"  he  replied. 

She  was  silent  for  some  minutes,  struggling  with  her  own 
self-deception.     It  was  an  instinct  in  her,  to  deceive  herself. 

"But  I'm  happy — I  think  life  is  awfully  jolly,"  she  said. 

"Good,"  he  answered,  with  a  certain  cold  indifference. 

She  reached  for  a  bit  of  paper  which  had  wrapped  a  small 
piece  of  chocolate  she  had  found  in  her  pocket,  and  began 
making  a  boat.  He  watched  her  without  heeding  her.  There 
was  something  strangely  pathetic  and  tender  in  her  moving, 
unconscious  finger-tips,  that  were  agitated  and  hurt,  really. 

"I  do  enjoy  things— don't  you?"  she  asked. 

"Oh  yes!     But  it  infuriates  me  that  I  can't  get  right,  at 


136  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

the  really  growing  part  of  me.  I  feel  all  tangled  and  messed 
up,  and  I  cant  get  straight  anyhow.  I  don't  know  what 
really  to  do.     One  must  do  something  somewhere." 

"Why  should  you  always  be  doing?"  she  retorted.  "It  is 
so  plebeian.  I  think  it  is  much  better  to  be  really  patrician, 
and  to  do  nothing  but  just  be  oneself,  like  a  walking  flower." 

"I  quite  agree,"  he  said,  "if  one  has  burst  into  blossom. 
But  I  can't  get  my  flower  into  blossom  anyhow.  Either  it 
is  blighted  in  the  bud,  or  has  got  the  smother-fly,  or  it  isn't 
nourished.  Curse  it,  it  isn't  even  a  bud.  It  is  a  contravened 
knot." 

Again  she  laughed.  He  was  so  very  fretful  and  exas- 
perated. But  she  was  anxious  and  puzzled.  How  was  one 
to  get  out,  anyhow.     There  must  be  a  way  out  somewhere. 

There  was  a  silence,  wherein  she  wanted  to  cry.  She 
reached  for  another  bit  of  chocolate  paper,  and  began  to  fold 
another  boat. 

"And  why  is  it,"  she  asked  at  length,  "that  there  is  no 
flowering,  no  dignity  of  human  life  now?" 

"The  whole  idea  is  dead.  Humanity  itself  is  dry-rotten, 
really.  There  are  myriads  of  human  beings  hanging  on  the 
bush — and  they  look  very  nice  and  rosy,  your  healthy  young 
men  and  women.  But  they  are  apples  of  Sodom,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  Dead  Sea  fruit,  gall-apples.  It  isn't  true  that  they 
have  any  significance — their  insides  are  full  of  bitter,  corrupt 
ash." 

"But  there  are  good  people,"  protested  Ursula. 

"Good  enough  for  the  life  of  to-day.  But  mankind  is  a 
dead  tree,  covered  with  fine  brilliant  galls  of  people." 

Ursula  could  not  help  stiffening  herself  against  this,  it 
was  too  picturesque  and  final.  But  neither  could  she  help 
making  him  go  on. 

"And  if  it  is  so,  why  is  it?"  she  asked  hostile.  They  were 
rousing  each  other  to  a  fine  passion  of  opposition. 

"Why,  why  are  people  all  balls  of  bitter  dust?  Because 
they  won't  fall  off  the  tree  when  they're  ripe.  They  hang 
on  to  their  old  positions  when  the  position  is  overpast,  till 
they  become  infested  with  little  worms  and  dry-rot." 

There  was  a  long  pause.      His  voice  had  become  hot  and 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  137 

very  sarcastic.  Ursula  was  troubled  and  bewildered,  they  were 
both  oblivious  of  everything  but  their  own  immersion. 

"But  even  if  everybody  is  wrong — where  are  you  right?" 
she  cried,  "where  are  you  any  better?" 

"I? — I'm  not  right,"  he  cried  back.  "At  least  my  only 
lightness  lies  in  the  fact  that  I  know  it.  I  detest  what  I 
am,  outwardly.  I  loathe  myself  as  a  human  being.  Human- 
ity is  a  huge  aggregate  lie,  and  a  huge  lie  is  less  than  a  small 
truth.  Humanity  is  less,  far  less  than  the  individual,  because 
the  individual  may  sometimes  be  capable  of  truth,  and  human- 
ity is  a  tree  of  lies. — And  they  say  that  love  is  the  greatest 
thing;  they  persist  in  saying  this,  the  foul  liars,  and  just  look  at 
what  they  do !  Look  at  all  the  millions  of  people  who  repeat  every 
minute  that  love  is  the  greatest,  and  charity  is  the  greatest — 
and  see  what  they  are  doing  all  the  time.  By  their  works  ye 
shall  know  them,  for  dirty  liars  and  cowards,  who  daren't  stand 
by  their  own  actions,  much  less  by  their  own  words." 

"But,"  said  Ursula  sadly,  "that  doesn't  alter  the  fact  that 
love  is  the  greatest,  does  it?  What  they  do  doesn't  alter  the 
truth  of  what  they  say,  does  it?" 

"Completely,  because  if  what  they  say  were  true,  then  they 
couldn't  help  fulfilling  it.  But  they  maintain  a  lie,  and  so 
they  run  amok  at  last.  It's  a  lie  to  say  that  love  is  the  great- 
est. You  might  as  well  say  that  hate  is  the  greatest,  since 
the  opposite  of  everything  balances. — What  people  want  is 
hate — hate  and  nothing  but  hate.  And  in  the  name  of 
righteousness  and  love,  they  get  it.  They  distil  themselves 
with  nitroglycerine,  all  the  lot  of  them,  out  of  very  love. — 
It's  the  lie  that  kills.  If  we  want  hate,  let  us  have  it — death, 
murder,  torture,  violent  destruction — let  us  have  it:  but  not 
in  the  name  of  love. — But  I  abhor  humanity,  I  wish  it  was 
swept  away.  It  could  go,  and  there  would  be  no  absolute 
loss,  if  every  human  being  perished  to-morrow.  The  reality 
would  be  untouched.  Nay,  it  would  be  better.  The  real 
tn-<-  nf  life  would  then  be  rid  of  the  most  ghastly,  heavy  crop 
of  Dead  Sea  fruit,  the  intolerable  burden  of  myriad  simulacra 
of  people,  an  infinite  weight  of  mortal  lies." 

"So  you'd  like  everybody  in  the  world  destroyed?"  said 
Ursula. 


138  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"I  should  indeed." 

"And  the  world  empty  of  people?" 

"Yes,  truly.  You  yourself,  don't  you  find  it  a  beautiful 
clean  thought,  a  world  empty  of  people,  just  uninterrupted 
grass,  and  a  hare  sitting  up?" 

The  pleasant  sincerity  of  his  voice  made  Ursula  pause  to 
consider  her  own  proposition.  And  really  it  was  attractive: 
a  clean,  lovely,  humanless  world.  It  was  the  really  desirable. 
— Her  heart  hesitated,  and  exulted. — But  still,  she  was  dis- 
satisfied with  him. 

"But,"  she  objected,  "you'd  be  dead  yourself,  so  what 
good  would  it  do  you?" 

"I  would  die  like  a  shot,  to  know  that  the  earth  would 
really  be  cleaned  of  all  the  people.  It  is  the  most  beautiful 
and  freeing  thought.  Then  there  would  never  be  another 
foul  humanity  created,  for  a  universal  defilement." 

"No,"  said  Ursula,  "there  would  be  nothing." 

"What!  Nothing?  Just  because  humanity  was  wiped  out? 
You  flatter  yourself.      There'd  be  everything." 

"But  how,  if  there  were  no  people?" 

"Do  you  think  that  creation  depends  on  man?  It  merely 
doesn't. — There  are  the  trees  and  the  grass  and  birds.  I 
much  prefer  to  think  of  the  lark  rising  up  in  the  morning  upon 
a  humanless  world. — Man  is  a  mistake,  he  must  go. — There 
is  the  grass,  and  hares  and  adders,  and  the  unseen  hosts,  actual 
angels  that  go  about  freely  when  a  dirty  humanity  doesn't 
interrupt  them — and  good  pure-tissued  demons:  very  nice." 

It  pleased  Ursula,  what  he  said,  pleased  her  very  much, 
as  a  phantasy.  Of  course  it  was  only  a  pleasant  fancy.  She 
herself  knew  too  well  the  actuality  of  humanity,  its  hideous 
actuality.  She  knew  it  could  not  disappear  so  cleanly  and 
conveniently.  It  had  a  long  way  to  go  yet,  a  long  and  hideous 
way.     Her  subtle,  feminine,  demoniacal  soul  knew  it  well. 

"If  only  man  was  swept  off  the  face  of  the  earth,  creation 
would  go  on  so  marvellously,  with  a  new  start,  non-human. 
Man  is  one  of  the  mistakes  of  creation — like  the  ichthyosauri. 
— If  only  he  were  gone  again,  think  what  lovely  things  would 
come  out  of  the  liberated  days; — things  straight  out  of  the 
fire." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  13& 

"But  man  will  never  be  gone,"  she  said,  with  insidious, 
diabolical  knowledge  of  the  horrors  of  persistence.  "The 
world  will  go  with  him." 

"Ah,  no,"  he  answered,  "not  so.  I  believe  in  the  proud 
angels  and  the  demons  that  are  our  fore-runners.  They  will 
destroy  us,  because  we  are  not  proud  enough.  The  ichthyo- 
sauri were  not  proud;  they  crawled  and  floundered  as  we  do. 
— And  besides,  look  at  elder-flowers  and  bluebells — they  are 
a  sign  that  pure  creation  takes  place — even  the  butterfly. 
But  humanity  never  gets  beyond  the  caterpillar  stage — it 
rots  in  the  chrysalis,  it  never  will  have  wings.  It  is  anti- 
creation,  like  monkeys  and  baboons." 

Ursula  watched  him  as  he  talked.  There  seemed  a  cer- 
tain impatient  fury  in  him,  all  the  while,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  great  amusement  in  everything,  and  a  great  tolerance. 
And  it  was  this  tolerance  she  mistrusted,  not  the  fury.  She 
saw  that,  all  the  while,  in  spite  of  himself,  he  would  have  to 
be  trying  to  save  the  world.  And  this  knowledge,  whilst  it 
comforted  her  heart  somewhere  with  a  little  self-satisfaction, 
stability,  yet  filled  her  with  a  certain  sharp  contempt  and 
hate  of  him.  She  wanted  him  to  herself,  she  hated  the  Sal- 
vator  Mundi  touch.  It  was  something  diffuse  and  generalised 
about  him,  which  she  could  not  stand. — He  would  behave  in 
the  same  way,  say  the  same  things,  give  himself  as  com- 
pletely to  anybody  who  came  along,  anybody  and  everybody 
who  liked  to  appeal  to  him.  It  was  despicable,  a  very  in- 
sidious form  of  prostitution. 

"But,"  she  said,  "you  believe  in  individual  love,  even  if 
you  don't  believe  in  loving  humanity — ?" 

"I  don't  believe  in  love  at  all — that  is,  any  more  than  I 
believe  in  hate,  or  in  grief.  Love  is  one  of  the  emotions  like 
all  the  others — and  so  it  is  all  right  whilst  you  feel  it.  But  I 
can't  see  how  it  becomes  an  absolute.  It  is  just  part  of 
human  relationships,  no  more.  And  it  is  only  part  of  any 
human  relationship.  And  why  one  should  be  required  always 
to  feel  it,  any  more  than  one  always  feels  sorrow  or  distant 
joy,  I  cannot  conceive.  Love  isn't  a  desideratum — it  is  an 
emotion  you  feel  or  you  don't  feel,  according  to  circumstance." 

"Then  why  do  you  care  about  people  at  all?"  she  asked, 


140  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

"if  you  don't  believe  in  love?  Why  do  you  bother  about 
humanity?" 

"Why  do  I?     Because  I  can't  get  away  from  it." 

"Because  you  love  it,"  she  persisted. 

It  irritated  him. 

"If  I  do  love  it,"  he  said,  "it  is  my  disease." 

"But  it  is  a  disease  you  don't  want  to  be  cured  of,"  she 
said,  with  some  cold  sneering. 

He  was  silent  now,  feeling  she  wanted  to  insult  him. 

"And  if  you  don't  believe  in  love,  what  do  you  believe 
in?"  she  asked  mockingly.  "Simply  in  the  end  of  the  world, 
and  grass?" 

He  was  beginning  to  feel  a  fool. 

"I  believe  in  the  unseen  hosts,"  he  said. 

"And  nothing  else? — You  believe  in  nothing  visible,  except 
grass  and  birds? — Your  world  is  a  poor  show." 

"Perhaps  it  is,"  he  said,  cool  and  superior  now  he  was 
offended,  assuming  a  certain  insufferable  priggish  superiority, 
and  withdrawing  into  his  distance. 

Ursula  disliked  him.  But  also  she  felt  she  had  lost  some- 
thing. She  looked  at  him  as  he  sat  crouched  on  the  bank. 
There  was  a  certain  priggish  Sunday-school  stiffness  over  him, 
priggish  and  detestable.  And  yet,  at  the  same  time,  the 
moulding  of  him  was  so  quick  and  attractive,  it  gave  such  a 
great  sense  of  freedom:  the  moulding  of  his  brows,  his  chin, 
his  whole  physique,  something  so  alive,  somewhere,  in  spite 
of  the  look  of  sickness. 

And  it  was  this  duality  in  feeling  which  he  created  in  her, 
that  made  a  fine  hate  of  him  quicken  in  her  bowels.  There 
was  his  wonderful,  desirable  life-rapidity,  the  rare  quality  of 
an  utterly  desirable  man;  and  there  was  at  the  same  time 
this  ridiculous,  mean  effacement  into  a  Salvador  Mundi  and 
a  Sunday-school  teacher,  a  prig  of  the  stiffest  type. 

He  looked  up  at  her.  He  saw  her  face  strangely  enkindled, 
as  if  suffused  from  within  by  a  powerful  sweet  fire.  His  soul 
was  arrested  in  wonder.  She  was  enkindled  in  her  own  living 
fire.  Arrested  in  wonder  and  in  pure,  perfect  attraction,  he 
moved  towards  her.  She  sat  like  a  strange  queen,  almost 
supernatural  in  her  glowing  smiling  richness. 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  141 

"The  point  about  love,"  he  said,  his  consciousness  quickly 
adjusting  itself,  "is  that  we  hate  the  word  because  we  have 
vulgarized  it.  It  ought  to  be  proscribed,  tabood  from  utter- 
ance, for  many  years,  till  we  get  a  new,  better  idea." 

There  was  a  beam  of  understanding  between  them. 

"But  it  always  means  the  same  thing,"  she  said. 

"Ah,  God,  no,  let  it  not  mean  that  any  more,"  he  cried. 
"Let  the  old  meanings  go." 

"But  still  it  is  love,"  she  persisted.  A  strange,  wicked 
yellow  light  shone  at  him  in  her  eyes. 

He  hesitated,  baffled,  withdrawing. 

"No,"  he  said,  "it  isn't.  Spoken  like  that,  never  in  the 
world.      You've  no  business  to  utter  the  word." 

"I  must  leave  it  to  you,  to  take  it  out  of  the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant  at  the  right  moment,"  she  mocked. 

Again  they  looked  at  each  other.  She  suddenly  sprang 
up,  turned  her  back  to  him,  and  walked  away.  He,  too,  rose 
slowly  and  went  to  the  water's  edge,  where,  crouching,  he 
began  to  amuse  himself  unconsciously.  Picking  a  daisy  he 
dropped  it  on  the  pond,  so  that  the  stem  was  a  keel,  the 
flower  floated  like  a  little  water  lily,  staring  with  its  open  face 
up  to  the  sky.  It  turned  slowly  round,  in  a  slow,  slow  der- 
vish dance,  as  it  veered  away. 

He  watched  it,  then  dropped  another  daisy  into  the  water, 
and  after  that  another,  and  sat  watching  them  with  bright, 
absolved  eyes,  crouching  near  on  the  bank.  Ursula  turned 
to  look.  A  strange  feeling  possessed  her,  as  if  something  were 
taking  place.  But  it  was  all  intangible.  And  some  sort  of 
control  was  being  put  on  her.  She  could  not  know.  She 
could  only  watch  the  brilliant  little  discs  of  the  daisies  veer- 
ing slowly  in  travel  on  the  dark,  lustrous  water.  The  little 
flotilla  was  drifting  into  the  light,  a  company  of  white  specks 
in  the  distance. 

"Do  let  us  go  to  the  shore,  to  follow  them,"  she  said, 
afraid  of  being  any  longer  imprisoned  on  the  island.  And  they 
pushed  off  in  the  punt. 

She  was  glad  to  be  on  the  free  land  again.  She  went 
along  the  bank  towards  the  sluice.  The  daisies  were  scat- 
t<  r.(l   broadcast  on   the  pond,   tiny  radiant   things,  like  an 


142  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

exaltation,  points  of  exaltation  here  and  there.  Why  did 
they  move  so  strongly  and  mystically? 

"Look,"  he  said,  "your  boat  of  purple  paper  is  escorting 
them,  and  they  are  a  convoy  of  rafts." 

Some  of  the  daisies  came  slowly  towards  her,  hesitating, 
making  a  shy,  bright  little  cotillon  on  the  dark  clear  water. 
Their  gay  bright  candour  moved  her  so  much  as  they  came 
near,  that  she  was  almost  in  tears. 

"Why  are  they  so  lovely?"  she  cried.  "Why  do  I  think 
them  so  lovely?" 

"They  are  nice  flowers,"  he  said,  her  emotional  tones  put- 
ting a  constraint  on  him. 

"You  know  that  a  daisy  is  a  company  of  florets,  a  con- 
course, become  individual.  Don't  the  botanists  put  it  high- 
est in  the  line  of  development?     I  believe  they  do." 

"The  composite,  yes,  I  think  so,"  said  Ursula,  who  was 
never  very  sure  of  anything.  Things  she  knew  perfectly  well, 
at  one  moment,  seemed  to  become  doubtful  the  next. 

"Explain  it  so,  then,"  he  said.  "The  daisy  is  a  perfect 
little  democracy,  so  it's  the  highest  of  flowers,  hence  its 
charm." 

"No,"  she  cried,  "no — never.      It  isn't  democratic." 

"No,"  he  admitted.  "It's  the  golden  mob  of  the  pro- 
letariat, surrounded  by  a  showy  white  fence  of  the  idle  rich." 

"How  hateful — your  hateful  social  orders!"  she  cried. 

"Quite!     It's  a  daisy — we'll  leave  it  alone." 

"Do.  Let  it  be  a  dark  horse  for  once,"  she  said.  "If 
anything  can  be  a  dark  horse  to  you,"  she  added  satirically. 

They  stood  aside,  forgetful.  As  if  a  little  stunned,  they 
both  were  motionless,  barely  conscious.  The  little  conflict 
into  which  they  had  fallen  had  torn  their  consciousness  and 
left  them  like  two  impersonal  forces,  there  in  contact. 

He  became  aware  of  the  lapse.  He  wanted  to  say  some- 
thing, to  get  on  to  a  new  more  ordinary  footing. 

"You  know,"  he  said,  "that  I  am  having  rooms  here  at 
the  mill?     Don't  you  think  we  can  have  some  good  times?" 

"Oh  are  you?"  she  said,  ignoring  all  his  implication  of 
admitted  intimacy. 

He  adjusted  himself  at  once,  became  normally  distant. 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  143 

"If  I  find  I  can  live  sufficiently  by  myself,"  he  continued, 
"I  shall  give  up  my  work  altogether.  It  has  become  dead 
to  me.  I  don't  believe  in  the  humanity  I  pretend  to  be 
part  of,  I  don't  care  a  straw  for  the  social  ideals  I  live  by, 
I  hate  the  dying  organic  form  of  social  mankind — so  it  can't 
be  anything  but  trumpery,  to  work  at  education.  I  shall 
drop  it  as  soon  as  I  am  clear  enough — to-morrow,  perhaps — 
and  be  by  myself." 

"Have  you  enough  to  live  on?"  asked  Ursula. 

"Yes — I've  about  two  hundred  a  year.  That  makes  it 
easy  for  me." 

There  was  a  pause. 

"And  what  about  Hermione?"  asked  Ursula. 

"That's  over,  finally — a  pure  failure,  and  never  could  have 
been  anything  else." 

"But  you  still  know  each  other?" 

"We  could  hardly  pretend  to  be  strangers,  could  we?" 

There  was  a  stubborn  pause. 

"But  isn't  that  a  half-measure?"  asked  Ursula  at  length. 

"I  don't  think  so,"  he  said.  "You'll  be  able  to  tell  me 
if  it  is." 

Again  there  was  a  pause  of  some  minutes'  duration.  He 
was  thinking. 

"One  must  throw  everything  away,  everything — let  every- 
thing go,  to  get  the  one  last  thing  one  wants,"  he  said. 

"What  thing?"  she  asked  in  challenge. 

"I  don't  know — freedom  together,"  he  said. 

She  had  wanted  him  to  say  "love." 

There  was  heard  a  loud  barking  of  the  dogs  below.  He 
seemed  disturbed  by  it.  She  did  not  notice.  Only  she 
thought  he  seemed  uneasy. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,"  he  said,  in  rather  a  small  voice, 
"I  believe  that  is  Hermione  come  now,  with  Gerald  Crich. 
She  wanted  to  see  the  rooms  before  they  are  furnished." 

"I  know,"  said  Ursula.  "She  will  superintend  the  fur- 
nishing for  you." 

"Probably.     Does  it  matter?" 

"Oh  no,  I  should  think  not,"  said  Ursula.  "Though  per- 
sonally, I  can't  bear  her.      I  think  she  is  a  lie,  if  you  like, 


144  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

you  who  are  always  talking  about  lies."  Then  she  ruminated 
for  a  moment,  when  she  broke  out:  "Yes,  and  I  do  mind  if 
she  furnishes  your  rooms — I  do  mind.  I  mind  that  you  keep 
her  hanging  on  at  all." 

He  was  silent  now,  frowning. 

"Perhaps,"  he  said.  "I  don't  want  her  to  furnish  the 
rooms  here — and  I  don't  keep  her  hanging  on.  Only,  I 
needn't  be  churlish  to  her,  need  I? — At  any  rate,  I  shall  have 
to  go  down  and  see  them  now.      You'll  come,  won't  you?" 

"I  don't  think  so,"  she  said  coldly  and  irresolutely. 

"Won't  you?  Yes,  do.  Come  and  see  the  rooms  as 
well.      Do  come." 


CHAPTER  XII 

HE  SET  off  down  the  bank,  and  she  went  unwillingly 
with  him.  Yet  she  would  not  have  stayed  away, 
either. 

"We  know  each  other  well,  you  and  I,  already,"  he  said. 
She  did  not  answer. 

In  the  large  darkish  kitchen  of  the  mill,  the  laborer's  wife 
was  talking  shrilly  to  Hermione  and  Gerald,  who  stood,  he 
in  white  and  she  in  a  glistening  bluish  foulard,  strangely 
luminous  in  the  dusk  of  the  room;  whilst  from  the  cages  on 
the  walls,  a  dozen  or  more  canaries  sang  at  the  top  of  their 
voices.  The  cages  were  all  placed  round  a  small  square  win- 
dow at  the  back,  where  the  sunshine  came  in,  a  beautiful 
beam,  filtering  through  green  leaves  of  a  tree.  The  voice  of 
Mrs.  Salmon  shrilled  against  the  noise  of  the  birds,  which 
rose  ever  more  wild  and  triumphant,  and  the  woman's  voice 
went  up  and  up  against  them,  and  the  birds  replied  with 
wild  animation. 

"Here's  Rupert!"  shouted  Gerald  in  the  midst  of  the  din. 
He  was  suffering  badly,  being  very  sensitive  in  the  ear. 

"O-o-h  them  birds,  they  won't  let  you  speak — !"  shrilled 
the  laborer's  wife  in  disgust.      "I'll  cover  them  up." 

And  she  darted  here  and  there,  throwing  a  duster,  an 
apron,  a  towel,  a  table-cloth  over  the  cages  of  the  birds. 

"Now  will  you  stop  it,  and  let  a  body  speak  for  your 
row,"  she  said,  still  in  a  voice  that  was  too  high. 

The  party  watched  her.  Soon  the  cages  were  covered, 
they  had  a  strange  funereal  look.  But  from  under  the  towels 
odd  defiant  trills  and  bubblings  still  shook  out. 

"Oh,  they  won't  go  on,"  said  Mrs.  Salmon  reassuringly. 
"They'll  go  to  sleep  now." 

"Really."  ^;iiil  Hermione,  politely. 

"They  will,"  said  Gerald.  "They  will  go  to  sleep  auto- 
matically, now  the  imprcsMon  of  evening  is  produced." 

145 


146  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Are  they  so  easily  deceived?"  cried  Ursula. 

"Oh,  yes,"  replied  Gerald.  "Don't  you  know  the  story 
of  Fabre,  who,  when  he  was  a  boy,  put  a  hen's  head  under 
her  wing,  and  she  straight  away  went  to  sleep?  It's  quite 
true." 

"And  did  that  make  him  a  naturalist?"  asked  Birkin. 

"Probably,"  said  Gerald. 

Meanwhile  Ursula  was  peeping  under  one  of  the  cloths. 
There  sat  the  canary  in  a  corner,  bunched  and  fluffed  up  for 
sleep. 

"How  ridiculous!"  she  cried.  "It  really  thinks  the  night 
has  come!  How  absurd!  Really,  how  can  one  have  any 
respect  for  a  creature  that  is  so  easily  taken  in?" 

"Yes,"  sang  Hermione,  coming  also  to  look.  She  put  her 
hand  on  Ursula's  arm  and  chuckled  a  low  laugh.  "Yes, 
doesn't  he  look  comical?"  she  chuckled.  "Like  a  stupid 
husband." 

Then,  with  her  hand  still  on  Ursula's  arm,  she  drew  her 
away,  saying,  in  her  mild  sing-song: 

"How  did  you  come  here?     We  saw  Gudrun,  too." 

"I  came  to  look  at  the  pond,"  said  Ursula,  "and  I  found 
Mr.  Birkin  there." 

"Did  you? — This  is  quite  a  Brangwen  land,  isn't  it!" 

"I'm  afraid  I  hoped  so,"  said  Ursula.  "I  ran  here  for 
refuge,  when  I  saw  you  down  the  lake,  just  putting  off." 

"Did  you? — And  now  we've  run  you  to  earth." 

Hermione's  eyelids  lifted  with  an  uncanny  movement, 
amused  but  overwrought.  She  had  always  her  strange,  rapt 
look,  unnatural  and  irresponsible. 

"I  was  going  on,"  said  Ursula.  "Mr.  Birkin  wanted  me 
to  see  the  rooms.  Isn't  it  delightful  to  live  here?  It  is 
perfect." 

"Yes,"  said  Hermione,  abstractedly.  Then  she  turned 
right  away  from  Ursula,  ceased  to  know  her  existence. 

"How  do  you  feel,  Rupert?"  she  sang  in  a  new,  affection- 
ate tone,  to  Birkin. 

"Very  well,"  he  replied. 

"Were  you  quite  comfortable?"  The  curious,  sinister, 
rapt  look  was  on  Hermione's  face,  she  shrugged  her  bosom 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  147 

in  a  convulsed  movement,  and  seemed  like  one  half  in 
a  trance. 

"Quite  comfortable,"  he  replied. 

There  was  a  long  pause,  whilst  Hermione  looked  at  him 
for  a  long  time,  from  under  her  heavy,  drugged  eyelids. 

"And  you  think  you'll  be  happy  here?"  she  said  at  last. 

"I'm  sure  I  shall." 

"I'm  sure  I  shall  do  anything  for  him  as  I  can,"  said  the 
laborer's  wife.  "And  I'm  sure  our  mester  will;  so  I  hope  as 
he'll  find  himself  comfortable." 

Hermione  turned  and  looked  at  her  slowly. 

"Thank  you  so  much,"  she  said,  and  then  she  turned  com- 
pletely away  again.  She  recovered  her  position,  and  lifting  her 
face  towards  him,  and  addressing  him  exclusively,  she  said: 

"Have  you  measured  the  rooms?" 

"No,"  he  said,  "I've  been  mending  the  punt." 

"Shall  we  do  it  now?"  she  said  slowly,  balanced  and  dis- 
passionate. 

"Have  you  got  a  tape  measure,  Mrs.  Salmon?"  he  said, 
turning  to  the  woman. 

"Yes  sir,  I  think  I  can  find  you  one,"  replied  the  woman, 
bustling  immediately  to  a  basket.  "This  is  the  only  one  I've 
got,  if  it  will  do." 

Hermione  took  it,  though  it  was  offered  to  him. 

"Thank  you  so  much,"  she  said.  "It  will  do  very  nicely. 
Thank  you  so  much."  Then  she  turned  to  Birkin,  saying 
with  a  little  gay  movement:   "Shall  we  do  it  now,  Rupert?" 

"What  about  the  others,  they'll  be  bored,"  he  said  reluc- 
tantly. 

"Do  you  mind?"  said  Hermione,  turning  to  Ursula  and 
Gerald  vaguely. 

"Not  in  the  least,"  they  replied. 

"Which  room  shall  we  do  first?"  she  said,  turning  again 
to  Birkin,  with  the  same  gaiety,  now  she  was  going  to  do 
something  with  him. 

"We'll  take  them  as  they  come,"  he  said. 

"Should  I  be  getting  your  teas  ready,  while  you  do  that?" 
said  the  laborer's  wife,  also  gay  because  she  had  something 
to  do. 


148  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

"Would  you?"  said  Hermione,  turning  to  her  with  the 
curious  motion  of  intimacy  that  seemed  to  envelop  the  wo- 
man, draw  her  almost  to  Hermione's  breast,  and  which  left 
the  others  standing  apart.  "I  should  be  so  glad.  Where 
shall  we  have  it?" 

"Where  would  you  like  it?  Shall  it  be  in  here,  or  out  on 
the  grass?" 

"Where  shall  we  have  tea?"  sang  Hermione  to  the  com- 
pany at  large. 

"On  the  bank  by  the  pond.  And  well  carry  the  things 
up,  if  you'll  just  get  them  ready,  Mrs.  Salmon,"  said  Birkin. 

"All  right,"  said  the  pleased  woman. 

The  party  moved  down  the  passage  into  the  front  room. 
It  was  empty,  but  clean  and  sunny.  There  was  a  window 
looking  on  to  the  tangled  front  garden. 

"This  is  the  dining  room,"  said  Hermione.  "We'll  meas- 
ure it  this  way,  Rupert — you  go  down  there — " 

"Can't  I  do  it  for  you?"  said  Gerald,  coming  to  take  the 
end  of  the  tape. 

"No,  thank  you,"  cried  Hermione,  stooping  to  the  ground 
in  her  bluish,  brilliant  foulard.  It  was  a  great  joy  to  her  to 
do  things,  and  to  have  the  ordering  of  the  job,  with  Birkin. 
He  obeyed  her  subduedly.  Ursula  and  Gerald  looked  on. 
It  was  a  peculiarity  of  Hermione's,  that  at  every  moment, 
she  had  one  intimate,  and  turned  all  the  rest  of  those  present 
into  onlookers.      This  raised  her  into  a  state  of  triumph. 

They  measured  and  discussed  in  the  dining-room,  and  Her- 
mione decided  what  the  floor  coverings  must  be.  It  sent  her 
into  a  strange,  convulsed  anger,  to  be  thwarted.  Birkin 
always  let  her  have  her  way,  for  the  moment. 

Then  they  moved  across,  through  the  hall,  to  the  other 
front  room,  that  was  a  little  smaller  than  the  first. 

"This  is  the  study,"  said  Hermione.  "Rupert,  I  have  a 
rug  that  I  want  you  to  have  for  here.  Will  you  let  me  give  it 
to  you?     Do — I  want  to  give  it  you." 

"What  is  it  like?"  he  asked  ungraciously. 

"You  haven't  seen  it.  It  is  chiefly  rose  red,  then  blue,  a 
metallic,  mid-blue,  and  a  very  soft  dark  blue.  I  think  you 
would  like  it.     Do  you  think  you  would?" 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  149 

"It  sounds  very  nice,"  he  replied.  "What  is  it?  Oriental? 
With  i  pile?" 

"Yes.  Persian!  It  is  made  if  camel's  hair,  silky.  I 
think  it  is  called  Bergamos: — twelve  feet  by  seven. — Do  you 
think  it  will  do?" 

"It  would  do,"  he  said.  "But  why  should  you  give  me 
an  expensive  rug?  I  can  manage  perfectly  well  with  my  old 
Oxford  Turkish." 

"But  may  I  give  it  to  you?     Do  let  me." 

"How  much  did  it  cost?" 

She  looked  at  him,  and  said: 

"I  don't  remember.      It  was  quite  cheap." 

He  looked  at  her,  his  face  set. 

"I  don't  want  to  take  it,  Hermione,"  he  said. 

"Do  let  me  give  it  to  the  rooms,"  she  said,  going  up  to 
him  and  putting  her  hand  on  his  arm  lightly,  pleadingly.  I 
shall  be  so  disappointed." 

"You  know  I  don't  want  you  to  give  me  things,"  he  re- 
peated helplessly. 

"I  don't  want  to  give  you  things,"  she  said  teasingly. 
"But  will  you  have  this?"  ; 

"All  right,"  he  said,  defeated,  and  she  triumphed. 

They  went  upstairs.  There  were  two  bedrooms  to  cor- 
respond with  the  rooms  downstairs.  One  of  them  was  half 
furnished,  and  Birkin  had  evidently  slept  there.  Hermione 
went  round  the  room  carefully,  taking  in  every  detail,  as  if 
absorbing  the  evidence  of  his  presence,  in  all  the  inanimate 
things.     She  felt  the  bed  and  examined  the  coverings. 

"Are  you  sure  you  were  quite  comfortable?"  she  said, 
pNMOIg  the  pillow. 

"Perfectly,"  he  replied  coldly. 

"And  were  you  warm?  There  is  no  down  quilt.  I  am  sure 
you  need  one.    You  mustn't  have  a  great  pressure  of  clothes." 

"I've  got  one,"  he  said.     "It  is  coming  down." 

They  measured  the  rooms,  and  lingered  over  every  con- 
sideration. Ursula  stood  at  the  window  and  watched  the 
woman  carrying  the  tea  up  the  bank  of  the  pond.  She  hated 
the  palaver  Hermione  made,  she  wanted  to  drink  tea.  she 
wanted  anything  but  this  fuss  and  business. 


150  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

At  last  they  all  mounted  the  grassy  bank,  to  the  picnic. 
Hermione  poured  out  tea.  She  ignored  now  Ursula's  pres- 
ence. And  Ursula,  recovering  from  her  ill-humour,  turned  to 
Gerald,  saying: 

"Oh,  I  hated  you  so  much  the  other  day,  Mr.  Crich." 

"What  for?"  said  Gerald,  wincing  slightly  away. 

"For  treating  your  horse  so  badly.  Oh,  I  hated  you  so 
much!" 

"What  did  he  do?"  sang  Hermione. 

"He  made  his  lovely  sensitive  Arab  horse  stand  with  him 
at  the  railway-crossing  whilst  a  horrbile  lot  of  trucks  went 
by;  and  the  poor  thing,  she  was  in  a  perfect  frenzy,  a  perfect 
agony.      It  was  the  most  horrible  sight  you  can  imagine." 

"Why  did  you  do  it,  Gerald?"  asked  Hermione,  calm  and 
interrogative. 

"She  must  learn  to  stand — what  use  is  she  to  me  in  this 
country,  if  she  shies  and  goes  off  every  time  an  engine  whis- 
tles?" 

"But  why  inflict  unnecessary  torture?"  said  Ursula. 
"Why  make  her  stand  all  that  time  at  the  crossing?  You 
might  just  as  well  have  ridden  back  up  the  road,  and  saved 
all  that  horror.  Her  sides  were  bleeding  where  you  had 
spurred  her.      It  is  too  horrible!" 

Gerald  stiffened. 

"I  have  to  use  her,"  he  replied.  "And  if  I'm  going  to  be 
sure  of  her  at  all,  she'll  have  to  learn  to  stand  noises." 

"Why  should  she?"  cried  Ursula  in  a  passion.  "She  is  a 
living  creature,  why  should  she  stand  anything,  just  because 
you  choose  to  make  her?  She  has  as  much  right  to  her  own 
being,  as  you  have  to  yours." 

"There  I  disagree,"  said  Gerald.  "I  consider  that  mare 
is  there  for  my  use.  Not  because  I  bought  her,  but  because 
that  is  the  natural  order.  It  is  more  natural  for  a  man  to 
take  a  horse  and  use  it  as  he  likes,  than  for  him  to  go  down 
on  his  knees  to  it,  begging  it  to  do  as  it  wishes,  and  to  fulfill 
its  own  marvellous  nature." 

Ursula  was  just  breaking  out,  when  Hermione  lifted  her 
face  and  began,  in  her  musing  sing-song: 

"I  do  think — I  do  really  think  we  must  have  the  courage 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  151 

to  use  the  lower  animal  life  for  our  needs.  I  do  think  there 
is  something  wrong,  when  we  look  on  every  living  creature  as 
if  it  were  ourselves.  I  do  feel,  that  it  is  false  to  project  our 
own  feelings  on  every  animate  creature.  It  is  a  lack  of  dis- 
crimination, a  lack  of  criticism." 

"Quite,"  said  Birkin  sharply.  "Nothing  is  so  detestable 
as  the  maudlin  attributing  of  human  feelings  and  conscious- 
ness to  animals." 

"Yes,"  said  Hermione,  wearily,  "we  must  really  take  a 
position.  Either  we  are  going  to  use  the  animals,  or  they 
will  use  us." 

"That's  a  fact,"  said  Gerald.  "A  horse  has  got  a  will 
like  a  man,  though  it  has  no  mind,  strictly.  And  if  your 
will  isn't  master,  then  the  horse  is  master  of  you.  And  this  is 
a  thing  I  can't  help.    I  can't  help  being  master  of  the  horse." 

"If  only  we  could  learn  how  to  use  our  will,"  said  Her- 
mione, "we  could  do  anything.  The  will  can  cure  anything, 
and  put  anything  right.  That  I  am  convinced  of — if  only 
we  use  the  will  properly,  intelligibly." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  using  the  will  properly?"  said 
Birkin. 

"A  very  great  doctor  taught  me,"  she  said,  addressing 
Ursula  and  Gerald  vaguely.  "He  told  me,  for  instance,  that 
to  cure  oneself  of  a  bad  habit,  one  should  force  oneself  to  do 
it,  when  one  would  not  do  it; — make  oneself  do  it — and  then 
the  habit  would  disappear." 

"How  do  you  mean?"  said  Gerald. 

"U  you  bite  your  nails,  for  example.  Then,  when  you 
don't  want  to  bite  your  nails,  bite  them,  make  yourself  bite 
them.     And  you  would  find  the  habit  was  broken." 

"Is  that  so?"  said  Gerald. 

"Yes.  And  in  so  many  things,  I  have  made  myself  well. 
I  was  a  very  queer  and  nervous  girl.  And  by  learning  to 
use  my  will,  simply  by  using  my  will,  I  made  myself  right." 

Ursula  looked  all  the  while  at  Hermione,  as  she  spoke  in 
her  slow,  dispassionate,  and  yet  strangely  tense  voice.  A 
curious  thrill  went  over  the  younger  woman.  Some  strange, 
dark,  convulsive  power  was  in  Hermione,  fascinating  and 
repelling. 


152  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"It  is  fatal  to  use  the  will  like  that,"  cried  Birkin  harshly, 
"disgusting.      Such  a  will  is  an  obscenity." 

Hermione  looked  at  him  for  a  long  time,  with  her  shadowed, 
heavy  eyes.  Her  face  was  soft  and  pale  and  thin,  almost 
phosphorescent,  her  jaw  was  lean. 

"I'm  sure  it  isn't,"  she  said  at  length.  There  always 
seemed  an  interval,  a  strange  split  between  what  she  seemed 
to  feel  and  experience,  and  what  she  actually  said  and  thought. 
She  seemed  to  catch  her  thoughts  at  length  from  off  the  sur- 
face of  a  maelstrom  of  chaotic  black  emotions  and  reactions, 
and  Birkin  was  always  filled  with  repulsion,  she  caught  so 
infallibly,  her  will  never  failed  her.  Her  voice  was  always 
dispassionate  and  tense,  and  perfectly  confident.  Yet  she 
shuddered  with  a  sense  of  nausea,  a  sort  of  sea-sickness  that 
always  threatened  to  overwhelm  her  mind.  But  her  mind 
remained  unbroken,  her  will  was  still  perfect.  It  almost  sent 
Birkin  mad.  But  he  would  never,  never  dare  to  break  her  will, 
and  let  loose  the  maelstrom  of  her  subconsciousness,  and  see  her 
in  her  ultimate  madness.      Yet  he  was  always  striking  at  her. 

"And,  of  course,"  he  said  to  Gerald,  "horses  haven  t  got  a 
complete  will,  like  human  beings.  A  horse  has  no  one  will. 
Every  horse,  strictly,  has  two  wills.  With  one  will,  it  wants 
to  put  itself  in  the  human  power  completely — and  with  the 
other,  it  wants  to  be  free,  wild.  The  two  wills  sometimes 
lock — you  know  that,  if  ever  you've  felt  a  horse  bolt,  while 
you've  been  driving  it." 

"I  have  felt  a  horse  bolt  while  I  was  driving  it,"  said 
Gerald,  "but  it  didn't  make  me  know  it  had  two  wills.  I 
only  knew  it  was  frightened." 

Hermione  had  ceased  to  listen.  She  simply  became 
oblivious  when  these  subjects  were  started. 

"Why  should  a  horse  want  to  put  itself  in  the  human 
power?"  asked  Ursula.  "That  is  quite  incomprehensible  to 
me.      I  don't  believe  it  ever  wanted  it." 

"Yes  it  did.  It's  the  last,  perhaps  highest,  love-impulse; 
resign  your  will  to  the  higher  being,"  said  Birkin. 

"What  curious  notions  you  have  of  love,"  jeered  Ursula. 

"And  woman  is  the  same  as  horses:  two  wills  act  in  oppo- 
sition inside  her.      With  one  will,  she  wants  to  subject  her- 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  153 

self  utterly.  With  the  other  she  wants  to  bolt,  and  pitch 
her  rider  to  perdition." 

"Then  I'm  a  bolter,"  said  Ursula,  with  a  burst  of  laughter. 

"It's  a  dangerous  thing  to  domesticate  even  horses,  let 
alone  women,"  said  Birkin.  "The  dominant  principle  has 
some  rare  antagonists." 

"Good  thing,  too,"  said  Ursula. 

"Quite,"  said  Gerald,  with  a  faint  smile.  "There's  more 
fun." 

Hermione  could  bear  no  more.  She  rose,  saying  in  her 
easy  sing-song : 

"Isn't  the  evening  beautiful?  I  get  filled  sometimes  with 
such  a  great  sense  of  beauty,  that  I  feel  I  can  hardly  bear  it." 

Ursula,  to  whom  she  had  appealed,  rose  with  her,  moved 
to  the  last  impersonal  depths.  And  Birkin  seemed  to  her 
almost  a  monster  of  hateful  arrogance.  She  went  with  Her- 
mione along  the  bank  of  the  pond,  talking  of  beautiful,  sooth- 
ing things,  picking  the  gentle  cowslips. 

"Wouldn't  you  like  a  dress,"  said  Ursula  to  Hermione, 
"of  this  yellow  spotted  with  orange — a  cotton  dress?" 

"Yes,"  said  Hermione,  stopping  and  looking  at  the  flower, 
letting  the  thought  come  home  to  her  and  soothe  her. 
"Wouldn't  it  be  pretty?     I  should  love  it." 

And  she  turned  smiling  to  Ursula,  in  a  feeling  of  real 
affection. 

But  Gerald  remained  with  Birkin,  wanting  to  probe  him 
to  the  bottom,  to  know  what  he  meant  by  the  dual  will  in 
horses.      A  flicker  of  excitement  danced  on  Gerald's  face. 

Hcrrnione  and  Ursula  strayed  on  together,  united  in  a 
sudden  bond  of  deep  affection  and  closeness. 

"I  really  do  not  want  to  be  forced  into  all  this  criticism 
and  analysis  of  life.  I  really  do  want  to  see  things  in  their 
entirety,  with  their  beauty  left  to  them,  and  their  wholeness, 
their  natural  holiness. — Don't  you  feel  it,  don't  you  feel  you 
cant  be  tortured  into  any  more  knowledge?"  said  Hermione, 
stopping  in  front  of  Ursula,  and  turning  to  her  with  clenched 
fists  thrust  downwards. 

"Yes,"  said  Ursula.  "I  do.  I  am  sick  of  all  this  poking 
and  prying." 


154  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"I'm  so  glad  you  are.  Sometimes,"  said  Hermione,  again 
stopping,  arrested  in  her  progress  and  turning  to  Ursula, 
"sometimes  I  wonder  if  I  ought  to  submit  to  all  this  realisa- 
tion, if  I  am  not  being  weak  in  rejecting  it. — But  I  feel  I 
can't — I  can't.  It  seems  to  destroy  everything.  All  the 
beauty  and  the — and  the  true  holiness  is  destroyed, — and  I 
feel  I  can't  live  without  them." 

"And  it  would  be  simply  wrong  to  live  without  them," 
cried  Ursula.  "No,  it  is  so  irreverent  to  think  that  every- 
thing must  be  realised  in  the  head.  Really,  something  must 
be  left  to  the  Lord,  there  always  is  and  always  will  be." 

"Yes,"  said  Hermione,  reassured  like  a  child,  "it  should, 
shouldn't  it?  And  Rupert — "  she  lifted  her  face  to  the  sky, 
in  a  muse — "he  can  only  tear  things  to  pieces.  He  really  is 
like  a  boy  who  must  pull  everything  to  pieces  to  see  how  it 
is  made.  And  I  can't  think  it  is  right — it  does  seem  so  ir- 
reverent, as  you  say." 

"Like  tearing  open  a  bud  to  see  what  the  flower  will  be 
like,"  said  Ursula. 

"Yes.  And  that  kills  everything,  doesn't  it?  It  doesn't 
allow  any  possibility  of  flowering." 

"Of  course  not,"  said  Ursula.      "It  is  purely  destructive." 

"It  is,  isn't  it!" 

Hermione  looked  long  and  slow  at  Ursula,  seeming  to 
accept  confirmation  from  her.  Then  the  two  women  were 
silent.  As  soon  as  they  were  in  accord,  they  began  mutually 
to  mistrust  each  other.  In  spite  of  herself,  Ursula  felt  her- 
self recoiling  from  Hermione.  It  was  all  she  could  do  to 
restrain  her  revulsion. 

They  returned  to  the  men,  like  two  conspirators  who  have 
withdrawn  to  come  to  an  agreement.  Birkin  looked  up  at 
them.  Ursula  hated  him  for  his  cold  watchfulness.  But  he 
said  nothing. 

"Shall  we  be  going?"  said  Hermione.  "Rupert,  you  are 
coming  to  Shortlands  to  dinner?  Will  you  come  at  once, 
will  you  come  now,  with  us?" 

"I'm  not  dressed,"  replied  Birkin.  "And  you  know  Ger- 
ald stickles  for  convention." 

"I  don't  stickle  for  it,"  said  Gerald.     "But  if  you'd  got 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  155 

as  sick  as  I  have  of  rowdy  go-as-you-please  in  the  house, 
you'd  prefer  it  if  people  were  peaceful  and  conventional,  at 
least  at  meals." 

"All  right,"  said  Birkin. 

"But  can't  we  wait  for  you  while  you  dress?"  persisted 
Hermione. 

"If  you  like." 

He  rose  to  go  indoors.  Ursula  said  she  would  take  her 
leave. 

"Only,"  she  said,  turning  to  Gerald,  "I  must  say  that, 
however  man  is  lord  of  the  beast  and  the  fowl,  I  still  don't 
think  he  has  any  right  to  violate  the  feelings  of  the  inferior 
creation.  I  still  think  it  would  have  been  much  more  sen- 
sible and  nice  of  you  if  you'd  trotted  back  up  the  road  while 
the  train  went  by,  and  been  considerate." 

"I  see,"  said  Gerald,  smiling,  but  somewhat  annoyed. 
"I  must  remember  another  time." 

"They  all  think  I'm  an  interfering  female,"  thought 
Ursula  to  herself,  as  she  went  away.  But  she  was  in  arms 
against  them. 

She  ran  home  plunged  in  thought.  She  had  been  very 
much  moved  by  Hermione,  she  had  really  come  into  contact 
with  her,  so  that  there  was  a  sort  of  league  between  the  two 
women.  And  yet  she  could  not  bear  her.  But  she  put  the 
thought  away.  "She's  really  good,"  she  said  to  herself. 
"She  really  wants  what  is  right."  And  she  tried  to  feel  at 
one  with  Hermione,  and  to  shut  off  from  Birkin.  She  was 
strictly  hostile  to  him.  But  she  was  held  to  him  by  some 
bond,  some  deep  principle.  This  at  once  irritated  her  and 
saved  her. 

Only  now  and  again,  violent  little  shudders  would  come 
over  her,  out  of  her  subconsciousness,  and  she  knew  it  was 
the  fact  that  she  had  stated  her  challenge  to  Birkin,  and  he 
had,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  accepted.  It  was  a  fight 
to  the  death  between  them — or  to  new  life:  though  in  what 
the  conflict  lay,  no  one  could  say. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  days  went  by,  and  she  received  no  sign.  Was  he 
going  to  ignore  her,  was  he  going  to  take  no  further 
notice  of  her  secret?  A  dreary  weight  of  anxiety  and 
acrid  bitterness  settled  on  her.  And  yet  Ursula  knew  she 
was  only  deceiving  herself,  and  that  he  would  proceed.  She 
said  no  word  to  anybody. 

Then,  sure  enough,  there  came  a  note  from  him,  asking 
if  she  would  come  to  tea,  with  Gudrun,  to  his  rooms  in  town. 

"Why  does  he  ask  Gudrun  as  well?"  she  asked  herself  at 
once.  "Does  he  want  to  protect  himself,  or  does  he  think 
I  would  not  go  alone?" 

She  was  tormented  by  the  thought  that  he  wanted  to  pro- 
tect himself.      But  at  the  end  of  all,  she  only  said  to  herself: 

"I  don't  want  Gudrun  to  be  there,  because  I  want  him 
to  say  something  more  to  me.  So  I  shan't  tell  Gudrun  any- 
thing about  it,  and  I  shall  go  alone.      Then  I  shall  know." 

She  found  herself  sitting  in  the  tram-car,  mounting  up  the 
hill  going  out  of  the  town,  to  the  place  where  he  had  his 
lodgings.  She  seemed  to  have  passed  into  a  kind  of  dream 
world,  absolved  from  the  conditions  of  actuality.  She  watched 
the  sordid  streets  of  the  town  go  by  beneath  her,  as  if  she  were 
a  spirit  disconnected  from  the  material  universe.  What  had 
it  all  to  do  with  her?  She  was  palpitating  and  formless  with- 
in the  flux  of  the  ghost  life.  She  could  not  consider  any 
more,  what  anybody  would  say  of  her  or  think  about  her. 
People  had  passed  out  of  her  range,  she  was  absolved.  She 
had  fallen  strange  and  dim,  out  of  the  sheath  of  the  material 
life,  like  a  berry  falls  from  the  only  world  it  has  ever  known, 
down  out  of  the  sheath  on  to  the  real  unknown. 

Birkin  was  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  when  she 
was  shown  in  by  the  landlady.  He,  too,  was  moved  outside 
himself.  She  saw  him  agitated  and  shaken,  a  frail,  unsub- 
stantial body  silent  like  the  node  of  some  violent  force,  that 
came  out  from  him  and  shook  her  almost  into  a  swoon. 

156 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  157 

"You  are  alone?"  he  said. 

"Yes — Gudrun  could  not  come." 

He  instantly  guessed  why. 

And  they  were  both  seated  in  silence,  in  the  terrible  ten- 
sion of  the  room.  She  was  aware  that  it  was  a  pleasant 
room,  full  of  light  and  very  restful  in  its  form — aware  also 
of  a  fuchsia  tree,  with  dangling  scarlet  and  purple  flowers. 

"How  nice  the  fuchsias  are!"  she  said,  to  break  the  silence. 

"Aren't  they? — Did  you  think  I  had  forgotten  what  I 
said?" 

A  swoon  went  over  Ursula's  mind. 

"I  don't  want  you  to  remember  it — if  you  don't  want 
to,"  she  struggled  to  say,  through  the  dark  mist  that  cov- 
ered her. 

There  was  silence  for  some  moments. 

"No,"  he  said.  "It  isn't  that.  Only — if  we  are  going 
to  know  each  other,  we  must  pledge  ourselves  for  ever.  If 
we  are  going  to  make  a  relationship,  even  of  friendship,  there 
must  be  something  final  and  infallible  about  it." 

There  was  a  clang  of  mistrust  and  almost  anger  in  his 
voice.  She  did  not  answer.  Her  heart  was  too  much  con- 
tracted.    She  could  not  have  spoken. 

Seeing  she  was  not  going  to  reply,  he  continued,  almost 
bitterly,  giving  himself  away: 

"I  can't  say  it  is  love  I  have  to  offer — and  it  isn't  love  I 
want.  It  is  something  much  more  impersonal  and  harder — 
and  rarer." 

There  was  a  silence,  out  of  which  she  said: 

"You  mean  you  don't  love  me?" 

She  suffered  furiously,  saying  that. 

"Yea,  if  you  like  to  put  it  like  that. — Though  perhaps 
that  isn't  true.  I  don't  know.  At  any  rate,  I  don't  feel 
the  emotion  of  love  for  you — no,  and  I  don't  want  to.  Be- 
cause it  gives  out  in  the  last  issues." 

"Love  gives  out  in  the  last  issues?"  she  asked,  feeling 
imiiil)  to  the  lips. 

"Yes,  it  does.  At  the  very  last,  one  is  alone,  beyond 
tin-  influence  of  love.  There  is  a  real  impersonal  me,  that  is 
beyond  love,  beyond  any  emotional  relationship.      So  it  is 


158  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

with  you.  But  we  want  to  delude  ourselves  that  love  is 
the  root.  It  isn't.  It  is  only  the  branches.  The  root  is 
beyond  love,  a  naked  kind  of  isolation,  an  isolated  me,  that 
does  not  meet  and  mingle,  and  never  can." 

She  watched  him  with  wide,  troubled  eyes.  His  face  was 
incandescent  in  its  abstract  earnestness. 

"And  you  mean  you  can't  love?"  she  asked,  in  trepida- 
tion. 

"Yes,  if  you  like. — I  have  loved.  But  there  is  a  beyond, 
where  there  is  no  love." 

She  could  not  submit  to  this.  She  felt  it  swooning  over 
her.     But  she  could  not  submit. 

"But  how  do  you  know — if  you  have  never  really  loved?" 
she  asked. 

"It  is  true,  what  I  say;  there  is  a  beyond,  in  you,  in  me, 
which  is  further  than  love,  beyond  the  scope,  as  stars  are 
beyond  the  scope  of  vision,  some  of  them." 

"Then  there  is  no  love,"  cried  Ursula. 

"Ultimately,  no,  there  is  something  else.  But,  ultimately, 
there  is  no  love." 

Ursula  was  given  over  to  this  statement  for  some  moments. 
Then  she  half  rose  from  her  chair,  saying,  in  a  final,  repellant 
voice : 

"Then  let  me  go  home — what  am  I  doing  here?" 

"There  is  the  door,"  he  said.     "You  are  a  free  agent." 

He  was  suspended  finely  and  perfectly  in  this  extremity. 
She  hung  motionless  for  some  seconds,  then  she  sat  down 
again. 

"If  there  is  no  love,  what  is  there?"  she  cried,  almost 
jeering. 

"Something,"  he  said,  looking  at  her,  battling  with  his 
soul,  with  all  his  might. 

"What?" 

He  was  silent  for  a  long  time,  unable  to  be  in  communica- 
tion with  her  while  she  was  in  this  state  of  opposition. 

"There  is,"  he  said,  in  a  voice  of  pure  abstraction,  "a 
final  me  which  is  stark  and  impersonal  and  beyond  respon- 
sibility. So  there  is  a  final  you.  And  it  is  there  I  would 
want  to  meet  you — not  in  the  emotional,  loving  plane — but 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  159 

there  beyond,  where  there  is  no  speech  and  no  terms  of  agree- 
ment. There  we  are  two  stark,  unknown  beings,  two  utterly 
strange  creatures,  I  would  want  to  approach  you,  and  you 
me. — And  there  could  be  no  obligation,  because  there  is  no 
standard  for  action  there,  because  no  understanding  has  been 
reaped  from  that  plane.  It  is  quite  inhuman, — so  there  can 
be  no  calling  to  book,  in  any  form  whatsoever — because  one 
is  outside  the  pale  of  all  that  is  accepted,  and  nothing  known 
applies.  One  can  only  follow  the  impulse,  taking  that  which 
lies  in  front,  and  responsible  for  nothing,  asked  for  nothing, 
giving  nothing,  only  each  taking  according  to  the  primal 
desire." 

Ursula  listened  to  this  speech,  her  mind  dumb  and  almost 
senseless,  what  he  said  was  so  unexpected  and  so  untoward. 

"It  is  just  purely  selfish,"  she  said. 

"If  it  is  pure,  yes.  But  it  isn't  selfish  at  all.  Because 
I  don't  know  what  I  want  of  you.  I  deliver  myself  over  to 
the  unknown,  in  coming  to  you,  I  am  without  reserves  or 
defences,  stripped  entirely,  into  the  unknown.  Only  there 
needs  the  pledge  between  us,  that  we  will  both  cast  off  every- 
thing, cast  off  ourselves  even,  and  cease  to  be,  so  that  that 
which  is  perfectly  ourselves  can  take  place  in  us." 

She  pondered  along  her  own  line  of  thought. 

"But  it  is  because  you  love  me,  that  you  want  me?"  she 
persisted. 

"No  it  isn't.  It  is  because  I  believe  in  you — if  I  do  believe 
in  you." 

"Aren't  you  sure?"  she  laughed,  suddenly  hurt. 

He  was  looking  at  her  steadfastly,  scarcely  heeding  what 
she  said. 

"Yes,  I  must  believe  in  you,  or  else  I  shouldn't  be  here 
saying  this,"  he  replied.  "But  that  is  all  the  proof  I  have. 
I  don't  feel  any  very  strong  belief  at  this  particular  moment." 

She  disliked  him  for  this  sudden  relapse  into  weariness  and 
faithlessness. 

"But  don't  you  think  me  good-looking?"  she  persisted,  in 
a  mocking  voice. 

He  looked  at  her,  to  see  if  he  felt  that  she  was  good-looking. 

"I  don't  feel  that  you're  good-looking,"  he  said. 


160  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

"Not  even  attractive?"  she  mocked,  bitingly. 

He  knitted  his  brows  in  sudden  exasperation. 

"Don't  you  see  that  it's  not  a  question  of  visual  appre- 
ciation in  the  least?"  he  cried.  "I  don't  want  to  see  you. 
I've  seen  plenty  of  women,  I'm  sick  and  weary  of  seeing 
them.      I  want  a  woman  I  don't  see." 

"I'm  sorry  I  can't  oblige  you  by  being  invisible,"  she 
laughed. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "you  are  invisible  to  me,  if  you  don't 
force  me  to  be  visually  aware  of  you.  But  I  don't  want  to 
see  you  or  hear  you." 

"What  did  you  ask  me  to  tea  for,  then?"  she  mocked. 

But  he  would  take  no  notice  of  her.  He  was  talking  to 
himself. 

"I  want  to  find  you,  where  you  don't  know  your  own 
existence,  the  you  that  your  common  self  denies  utterly.  But 
I  don't  want  your  good  looks,  and  I  don't  want  your  womanly 
feelings,  and  I  don't  want  your  thoughts  nor  opinions  nor 
your  ideas — they  are  all  bagatelles  to  me." 

"You  are  very  conceited,  Monsieur,"  she  mocked.  "How 
do  you  know  what  my  womanly  feelings  are,  or  my  thoughts 
or  my  ideas?     You  don't  even  know  what  I  think  of  you  now." 

"Nor  do  I  care  in  the  slightest." 

"I  think  you  are  very  silly.  I  think  you  want  to  tell  me 
you  love  me,  and  you  go  all  this  way  round  to  do  it." 

"All  right,"  he  said,  looking  up  with  sudden  exasperation. 
"Now  go  away  then,  and  leave  me  alone.  I  don't  want  any 
more  of  your  meretricious  persiflage." 

"Is  it  really  persiflage?"  she  mocked,  her  face  really  relax- 
ing into  laughter.  She  interpreted  it,  that  he  had  made  a 
deep  confession  of  love  to  her.  But  he  was  so  absurd  in  his 
words,  also. 

They  were  silent  for  many  minutes,  she  was  pleased  and 
elated  like  a  child.  His  concentration  broke,  he  began  to 
look  at  her  simply  and  naturally. 

"What  I  want  is  a  strange  conjunction  with  you,"  he  said 
quietly;  " — not  meeting  and  mingling; — you  are  quite  right; 
— but  an  equilibrium,  a  pure  balance  of  two  single  beings; — 
as  the  stars  balance  each  other." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  161 

She  looked  at  him.  He  was  very  earnest,  and  earnestness 
was  always  rather  ridiculous,  commonplace,  to  her.  It  made 
her  feel  unfree  and  uncomfortable.  Yet  she  liked  him  so 
much.     But  why  drag  in  the  stars. 

"Isn't  this  rather  sudden?"  she  mocked. 

He  began  to  laugh. 

"Best  to  read  the  terms  of  the  contract,  before  we  sign," 
he  said. 

A  young  grey  cat  that  had  been  sleeping  on  the  sofa 
jumped  down  and  stretched,  rising  on  its  long  legs,  and  arch- 
ing its  slim  back.  Then  it  sat  considering  for  a  moment,  erect 
and  kingly.  And  then,  like  a  dart,  it  had  shot  out  of  the 
room,  through  the  open  window-doors,  and  into  the  garden. 

"What's  he  after?"  said  Birkin,  rising. 

The  young  cat  trotted  lordly  down  the  path,  waving  his 
tail.  He  was  an  ordinary  tabby  with  white  paws,  a  slender 
young  gentleman.  A  crouching,  fluffy,  brownish-grey  cat 
was  stealing  up  the  side  of  the  fence.  The  Mino  walked 
statelily  up  to  her,  with  manly  nonchalance.  She  crouched 
before  him  and  pressed  herself  on  the  ground  in  humility,  a 
fluffy  soft  outcast,  looking  up  at  him  with  wild  eyes  that  were 
green  and  lovely  as  great  jewels.  He  looked  casually  down 
on  her.  So  she  crept  a  few  inches  further,  proceeding  on  her 
way  to  the  back  door,  crouching  in  a  wonderful,  soft,  self- 
obliterating  manner,  and  moving  like  a  shadow. 

He,  going  statelily  on  his  slim  legs,  walked  after  her,  then 
suddenly,  for  pure  excess,  he  gave  her  a  light  cuff  with  his 
paw  on  the  side  of  her  face.  She  ran  off  a  few  steps,  like  a 
blown  leaf  along  the  ground,  then  crouched  unobtrusively,  in 
submissive,  wild  patience.  The  Mino  pretended  to  take  no 
notice  of  her.  He  blinked  his  eyes  superbly  at  the  land- 
scape. In  a  minute  she  drew  herself  together  and  moved 
softly,  a  fleecy  brown-grey  shadow,  a  few  paces  forward.  She 
began  to  quicken  her  pace,  in  a  moment  she  would  be  gone 
like  a  dream,  when  the  young  grey  lord  sprang  before  her, 
and  gave  her  a  light  handsome  cuff.  She  subsided  at  once, 
submissively. 

"She  is  a  wild  cat,"  said  Birkin.  "She  has  come  in  from 
the  woods." 


162  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

The  eyes  of  the  stray  cat  flared  round  for  a  moment,  like 
great  green  fires  staring  at  Birkin.  Then  she  had  rushed  in 
a  soft  swift  rush,  half-way  down  the  garden.  There  she  paused 
to  look  around.  The  Mino  turned  his  face  in  pure  superiority 
to  his  master,  and  slowly  closed  his  eyes,  standing  in  statuesque 
young  perfection.  The  wild  cat's  round,  green,  wondering 
eyes  were  staring  all  the  while  like  uncanny  fires.  Then 
again,  like  a  shadow,  she  slid  towards  the  kitchen. 

In  a  lovely  springing  leap,  like  a  wind,  the  Mino  was  upon 
her,  and  had  boxed  her  twice,  very  definitely,  with  a  white, 
delicate  fist.  She  sank  and  slid  back,  unquestioning.  He 
walked  after  her,  and  cuffed  her  once  or  twice,  leisurely,  with 
sudden  little  blows  of  his  magic  white  paws. 

"Now  why  does  he  do  that?"  cried  Ursula,  in  indignation. 

"They  are  on  intimate  terms,"  said  Birkin. 

"And  is  that  why  he  hits  her?" 

"Yes,"  laughed  Birkin,  "I  think  he  wants  to  make  it  quite 
obvious  to  her." 

"Isn't  it  horrid  of  him!"  she  cried;  and  going  out  into  the 
garden  she  called  the  Mino: 

"Stop  it,  don't  bully.     Stop  hitting  her." 

The  stray  cat  vanished  like  a  swift,  invisible  shadow.  The 
Mino  glanced  at  Ursula,  then  looked  from  her  disdainfully  to 
his  master. 

"Are  you  a  bully,  Mino?"  Birkin  asked. 

The  young  slim  cat  looked  at  him,  and  slowly  narrowed 
its  eyes.  Then  it  glanced  away  at  the  landscape,  looking  into 
the  distance  as  if  completely  oblivious  of  the  two  human 
beings. 

"Mino,"  said  Ursula,  "I  don't  like  you.  You  are  a  bully 
like  all  the  males." 

"No,"  said  Birkin,  "he  is  justified.  He  is  not  a  bully. 
He  is  only  insisting  to  the  poor  stray  that  she  shall  acknowl- 
edge him  as  a  sort  of  fate,  her  own  fate;  because  you  can  see 
she  is  fluffy  and  promiscuous  as  the  wind.  I  am  with  him 
entirely.      He  wants  superfine  stability." 

"Yes,  I  know!"  cried  Ursula.  "He  wants  his  own  way — 
I  know  what  your  fine  words  work  down  to — bossiness,  I  call 
it,  bossiness." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  163 

The  young  cat  again  glanced  at  Birkin  in  disdain  of  the 
noisy  woman. 

"I  quite  agree  with  you,  Miciotto,"  said  Birkin  to  the  cat. 
"Keep  your  male  dignity,  and  your  higher  understanding." 

Again  the  Mino  narrowed  his  eyes  as  if  he  were  looking  at 
the  sun.  Then,  suddenly  affecting  to  have  no  connection  at 
all  with  the  two  people,  he  went  trotting  off,  with  assumed 
spontaneity  and  gaiety,  his  tail  erect,  his  white  feet  blithe. 

"Now  he  will  find  the  belle  sauvage  once  more,  and  enter- 
tain her  with  his  superior  wisdom,"  laughed  Birkin. 

Ursula  looked  at  the  man  who  stood  in  the  garden  with 
his  hair  blowing  and  his  eyes  smiling  ironically,  and  she  cried : 

"Oh  it  makes  me  so  cross,  this  assumption  of  male  super- 
iority! And  it  is  such  a  lie!  One  wouldn't  mind  if  there 
were  any  justification  for  it." 

"The  wild  cat,"  said  Birkin,  "doesn't  mind.  She  per- 
ceives that  it  is  justified." 

"Does  she?"  cried  Ursula.  "And  tell  it  to  the  Horse 
Marines." 

"To  them  also." 

"It  is  just  like  Gerald  Crich  with  his  horse — a  lust  for 
bullying — a  real  Wille  zur  Macht — so  base,  so  petty." 

"I  agree  that  the  Wille  zur  Macht  is  a  base  and  petty 
thing.  But  with  the  Mino,  it  is  the  desire  to  bring  this 
female  cat  into  a  pure  stable  equilibrium,  a  transcendent  and 
abiding  rapport  with  the  single  male. — Whereas  without  him, 
as  you  see,  she  is  a  mere  stray,  a  fluffy  sporadic  bit  of  chaos. 
It  is  a  voUmtl  de  pouvoir,  if  you  like,  a  will  to  ability,  taking 
pouvoir  as  a  verb." 

"Ah!     Sophistries!     It's  the  old  Adam." 

"Oh  yes.  Adam  and  Eve  in  the  indestructible  paradise, 
when  he  kept  her  single  with  himself,  like  a  star  in  its  orbit." 

"Yes — yes — "  cried  Ursula,  pointing  her  finger  at  him. 
"There  you  are — a  star  in  its  orbit!  A  satellite — a  satellite  of 
Mara — that's  what  she  is  to  be!  There — there — you've  given 
yourself  away!  You  want  a  satellite,  Mars  and  his  satellite! 
You've  said  it — you've  said  it — you've  dished  yourself!" 

He  stood  smiling  in  frustration  and  amusement  and  irri- 
tation and  admiration  and  love.      She  was  so  quick,  and  so 


164  WOMEN  IN   LOVE 

lambent,  like  discernible  fire,  and  so  vindictive,  and  so  rich 
in  her  dangerous  flamy  sensitiveness. 

"I've  not  said  it  at  all,"  he  replied,  "if  you  will  give  me 
a  chance  to  speak." 

"No,  no!"  she  cried.  "I  won't  let  you  speak.  You've 
said  it,  a  satellite,  you're  not  going  to  wriggle  out  of  it.  You've 
said  it." 

"You'll  never  believe  now  that  I  haven't  said  it,"  he  an- 
swered. "I  neither  implied  nor  indicated  nor  mentioned  a 
satellite,  nor  intended  a  satellite,  never." 

"You  prevaricator."  she  cried,  in  real  indignation. 

"Tea  is  ready,  sir,"  said  the  landlady  from  the  doorway. 

They  both  looked  at  her,  very  much  as  the  cats  had  looked 
at  them,  a  little  while  before. 

"Thank  you,  Mrs.  Daykin." 

An  interrupted  silence  fell  over  the  two  of  them,  a  moment 
of  breach. 

"Come  and  have  tea,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  I  should  love  it,"  she  replied,  gathering  herself  to- 
gether. 

They  sat  facing  each  other  across  the  tea  table. 

"I  did  not  say,  nor  imply,  a  satellite.  I  meant  two  single 
equal  stars  balanced  in  conjunction — " 

"You  gave  yourself  away,  you  gave  away  your  little  game 
completely,"  she  cried,  beginning  at  once  to  eat.  He  saw 
that  she  would  take  no  further  heed  of  his  expostulation,  so 
he  began  to  pour  the  tea. 

"What  good  things  to  eat!"  she  cried. 

"Take  your  own  sugar,"  he  said. 

He  handed  her  her  cup.  He  had  everything  so  nice,  such 
pretty  cups  and  plates,  painted  with  mauve-lustre  and  green, 
also  shapely  bowls  and  glass  plates,  and  old  spoons,  on  a 
woven  cloth  of  pale  grey  and  black  and  purple.  It  was  very 
rich  and  fine.     But  Ursula  could  see  Hermione's  influence. 

"Your  things  are  so  lovely!"  she  said,  almost  angrily. 

"/  like  them.  It  gives  me  real  pleasure  to  use  things 
that  are  attractive  in  themselves — pleasant  things.  And  Mrs. 
Daykin  is  good.  She  thinks  everything  is  wonderful,  for  my 
sake." 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  165 

"Really,"  said  Ursula,  "landladies  are  better  than  wives, 
nowadays.  They  certainly  care  a  great  deal  more.  It  is 
much  more  beautiful  and  complete  here  now,  than  if  you 
were  married." 

"But  think  of  the  emptiness  within,"  he  laughed. 

"No,"  she  said.  "I  am  jealous  that  men  have  such  per- 
fect landladies  and  such  beautiful  lodgings.  There  is  nothing 
left  them  to  desire." 

"In  the  house-keeping  way,  we'll  hope  not.  It  is  dis- 
gusting, people  marrying  for  a  home." 

"Still,"  said  Ursula,  "a  man  has  very  little  need  for  a 
woman  now,  has  he?" 

"In  outer  things,  maybe — except  to  share  his  bed  and  bear 
his  children.  But  essentially,  there  is  just  the  same  need  as 
there  ever  was.  Only  nobody  takes  the  trouble  to  be  essen- 
tial." 

"How  essential?"  she  said. 

"I  do  think,"  he  said,  "that  the  world  is  only  held  to- 
gether by  the  mystic  conjunction,  the  ultimate  unison  between 
people — a  bond.  And  the  immediate  bond  is  between  man 
and  woman." 

"But  it's  such  old  hat,"  said  Ursula.  "Why  should  love 
be  a  bond? — No,  I'm  not  having  any." 

"If  you  are  walking  westward,"  he  said,  "you  forfeit  the 
northern  and  eastward  and  southern  direction. — If  you  admit 
a  unison,  you  forfeit  all  the  possibilities  of  chaos." 

"But  love  is  freedom,"  she  declared. 

"Don't  cant  to  me,"  he  replied.  "Love  is  a  direction 
which  excludes  all  other  directions.  It's  a  freedom  together,  if 
you  like." 

"No,"  she  said,  "love  includes  everything." 

"Sentimental  cant,"  he  replied.  "You  want  the  state  of 
chaos,  that's  all.  It  is  ultimate  nihilism,  this  freedom-in-love 
business,  this  freedom  which  is  love  and  love  which  is  free- 
dom.— As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  you  enter  into  a  pure  unison,  it 
is  irrevocable,  and  it  is  never  pure  till  it  is  irrevocable.  And 
when  it  is  irrevocable,  it  is  one  way,  like  the  path  of  a  star." 

"Ha!"  she  cried  bitterly.     "It  is  the  old  dead  morality." 

"No,"  he  said,  "it  is  the  law  of  creation.      One  is  com- 


166  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

mitted.  One  must  commit  oneself  to  a  conjunction  with  the 
other — forever.  But  it  is  not  selfish — it  is  a  maintaining  of 
the  self  in  mystic  balance  and  integrity — like  a  star  balanced 
with  another  star." 

"I  don't  trust  you  when  you  drag  in  the  stars,"  she  said. 
"If  you  were  quite  true,  it  wouldn't  be  necessary  to  be  so 
far-fetched." 

"Don't  trust  me  then,"  he  said,  angry.  "It  is  enough 
that  I  trust  myself." 

"And  that  is  where  you  make  another  mistake,"  she  re- 
plied. "You  don't  trust  yourself.  You  don't  fully  believe 
yourself  what  you  are  saying.  You  don't  really  want  this 
conjunction,  otherwise  you  wouldn't  talk  so  much  about  it, 
you'd  get  it." 

He  was  suspended  for  a  moment,  arrested. 

"How?"  he  said. 

"By  just  loving,"  she  retorted  in  defiance. 

He  was  still  a  moment,  in  anger.     Then  he  said. 

"I  tell  you,  I  don't  believe  in  love  like  that.  I  tell  you, 
you  want  love  to  administer  to  your  egoism,  to  subserve  you. 
Love  is  a  process  of  subservience  with  you — and  with  every- 
body.     I  hate  it." 

"No,"  she  cried,  pressing  back  her  head  like  a  cobra,  her 
eyes  flashing.   "It  is  a  process  of  pride — I  want  to  be  proud — " 

"Proud  and  subservient,  proud  and  subservient,  I  know 
you,"  he  retorted  dryly.  "Proud  and  subservient,  then  sub- 
servient to  the  proud — I  know  you  and  your  love.  It  is  a 
tick-tack,  tick-tack,  a  dance  of  opposites." 

"Are  you  sure?"  she  mocked  wickedly,  "what  my  love  is?" 

"Yes,  I  am,"  he  retorted. 

"So  cocksure!"  she  said.  "How  can  anybody  ever  be 
right,  who  is  so  cocksure?     It  shows  you  are  wrong." 

He  was  silent  in  chagrin  and  weariness. 

They  had  talked  and  struggled  till  they  were  both  wearied 
out. 

"Tell  me  about  yourself  and  your  people,"  he  said. 

And  she  told  him  about  the  Brangwens,  and  about  her 
mother,  and  about  Skrebensky,  her  first  love,  and  about  her 
later  experiences.      He  sat  very  still,  watching  her  as  she 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  167 

talked.  And  he  seemed  to  listen  with  reverence.  Her  face 
was  beautiful  and  full  of  baffled  light  as  she  told  him  all  the 
things  that  had  hurt  her  or  perplexed  her  so  deeply.  He 
seemed  to  warm  and  comfort  his  soul  at  the  beautiful  light 
of  her  nature. 

"If  she  really  could  pledge  herself,"  he  thought  to  him- 
self, with  passionate  insistence  but  hardly  any  hope.  Yet  a 
curious  little  irresponsible  laughter  appeared  in  his  heart. 

"We  have  all  suffered  so  much,"  he  mocked,  ironically. 

She  looked  up  at  him,  and  a  flash  of  wild  gaiety  went  over 
her  face,  a  strange  flash  of  yellow  light  coming  from  her  eyes. 

"Haven't  we?"  she  cried,  in  a  high,  reckless  cry.  "It  is 
almost  absurd,  isn't  it?" 

"Quite  absurd,"  he  said.     "Suffering  bores  me,  any  more." 

"So  it  does  me." 

He  was  almost  afraid  of  the  mocking  recklessness  of  her 
splendid  face.  Here  was  one  who  would  go  to  the  whole 
lengths  of  heaven  or  hell,  whichever  she  had  to  go.  And  he 
mistrusted  her,  he  was  afraid  of  a  woman  capable  of  such 
abandon,  such  dangerous  thoroughness  of  destructivity.  Yet 
he  chuckled  within  himself  also. 

She  came  over  to  him  and  put  her  hand  on  his  shoulder, 
looking  down  at  him  with  strange  golden-lighted  eyes,  very 
tender,  but  with  a  curious  devilish  look  lurking  underneath. 

"Say  you  love  me,  say  'my  love'  to  me,"  she  pleaded. 

He  looked  back  into  her  eyes,  and  saw.  His  face  flickered 
with  sardonic  comprehension. 

"I  love  you  right  enough,"  he  said,  grimly.  "But  I  want 
it  to  be  something  else." 

"But  why?  But  why?"  she  insisted,  bending  her  wonder- 
ful luminous  face  to  him.     "Why  isn't  it  enough?" 

"Because  we  can  go  one  better,"  he  said,  putting  his  arms 
round  her. 

"No,  we  can't,"  she  said,  in  a  strong,  voluptuous  voice  of 
yielding.  "We  can  only  love  each  other.  Say  'my  love'  to 
me,  say  it,  say  it." 

She  put  her  arms  round  his  neck.  He  enfolded  her,  and 
kissed  her  subtly,  murmuring  in  a  subtle  voice  of  love,  and 
irony,  and  submission: 


168  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Yes, — my  love,  yes, — my  love.  Let  love  be  enough 
then. — I  love  you  then — I  love  you.     I'm  bored  by  the  rest." 

"Yes,"  she  murmured,  nestling  very  sweet  and  close  to 
him. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

EVERY  year  Mr.  Crich  gave  a  more  or  less  public  water- 
party  on  the  lake.  There  was  a  little  pleasure-launch 
on  Willey  Water  and  several  rowing  boats,  and  guests 
could  take  tea  either  in  the  marquee  that  was  set  up  in  the 
grounds  of  the  house,  or  they  could  picnic  in  the  shade  of 
the  great  walnut-tree  at  the  boat-house  by  the  lake.  This 
year  the  staff  of  the  Grammar-School  was  invited,  along  with 
the  chief  officials  of  the  firm.  Gerald  and  the  younger  Criches 
did  not  care  for  this  party,  but  it  had  become  customary  now, 
and  it  pleased  the  father,  as  being  the  only  occasion  when  he 
could  gather  some  people  of  the  district  together  in  festivity 
with  him.  For  he  loved  to  give  pleasures  to  his  dependents 
and  to  those  poorer  than  himself.  But  his  children  preferred 
the  company  of  their  own  equals  in  wealth.  They  hated 
their  inferiors'  humility  or  gratitude  or  awkwardness. 

Nevertheless  they  were  willing  to  attend  at  this  festival, 
as  they  had  done  almost  since  they  were  children,  the  more 
so,  as  they  all  felt  a  little  guilty  now,  and  unwilling  to  thwart 
their  father  any  more,  since  he  was  so  ill  in  health.  There- 
fore, quite  cheerfully  Laura  prepared  to  take  her  mother's 
place  as  hostess,  and  Gerald  assumed  responsibility  for  the 
amusements  on  the  water. 

Birkin  had  written  to  Ursula  saying  he  expected  to  see  her 
at  the  party,  and  Gudrun,  although  she  scorned  the  patronage 
of  the  Criches,  would  nevertheless  accompany  her  mother  and 
father  if  the  weather  were  fine. 

The  day  came  blue  and  full  of  sunshine,  with  little  wafts 
of  wind.  The  sisters  both  wore  dresses  of  white  crepe,  and 
hats  of  soft  grass.  But  Gudrun  had  a  sash  of  brilliant  black 
and  pink  and  yellow  colour  wound  broadly  round  her  waist, 
and  she  had  pink  silk  stockings,  and  black  and  pink  and 
yellow  decoration  on  the  brim  of  her  hat,  weighing  it  down 
a  little.  She  carried  also  a  yellow  silk  coat  over  her  arm,  so 
that  she  looked  remarkable,  like  a  painting  from  the  Salon. 

160 


170  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

Her  appearance  was  a  sore  trial  to  her  father,  who  said 
angrily: 

"Don't  you  think  you  might  as  well  get  yourself  up  for  a 
Christmas  cracker,  an'  ha'  done  with  it?" 

But  Gudrun  looked  handsome  and  brilliant,  and  she  wore 
her  clothes  in  pure  defiance.  When  people  stared  at  her,  and 
giggled  after  her,  she  made  a  point  of  saying  loudly,  to  Ursula: 

"Regarde,  regarde  ces  gens-la!  Ne  sont-ils  pas  des  hiboux 
incroyables?"  And  with  the  words  of  French  in  her  mouth, 
she  would  look  over  her  shoulder  at  the  giggling  party. 

"No,  really,  it's  impossible!"  Ursula  would  reply  dis- 
tinctly. And  so  the  two  girls  took  it  out  of  their  universal 
enemy.     But  their  father  became  more  and  more  enraged. 

Ursula  was  all  snowy  white,  save  that  her  hat  was  pink, 
and  entirely  without  trimming,  and  her  shoes  were  dark  red, 
and  she  carried  an  orange-coloured  coat.  And  in  this  guise 
they  were  walking  all  the  way  to  Shortlands,  their  father  and 
mother  going  in  front. 

They  were  laughing  at  their  mother,  who,  dressed  in  a 
summer  material  of  black  and  purple  stripes,  and  wearing  a 
hat  of  purple  straw,  was  setting  forth  with  much  more  of  the 
shyness  and  trepidation  of  a  young  girl  than  her  daughters 
ever  felt,  walking  demurely  beside  her  husband,  who,  as 
usual,  looked  rather  crumpled  in  his  best  suit,  as  if  he  were 
the  father  of  a  young  family  and  had  been  holding  the  baby 
whilst  his  wife  got  dressed. 

"Look  at  the  young  couple  in  front,"  said  Gudrun  calmly. 
Ursula  looked  at  her  mother  and  father,  and  was  suddenly 
seized  with  uncontrollable  laughter.  The  two  girls  stood  in 
the  road  and  laughed  till  the  tears  ran  down  their  faces,  as 
they  caught  sight  again  of  the  shy,  unworldly  couple  of  their 
parents  going  on  ahead. 

"We  are  roaring  at  you,  mother,"  called  Ursula,  helplessly 
following  after  her  parents. 

Mrs.  Brangwen  turned  round  with  a  slightly  puzzled, 
exasperated  look.  "Oh,  indeed!"  she  said.  "What  is  there 
so  very  funny  about  me,  I  should  like  to  know?" 

She  could  not  understand  that  there  could  be  anything 
amiss  with  her  appearance.      She  had  a  perfect  calm  suffi- 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  171 

eiency,  an  easy  indifference  to  any  criticism  whatsoever,  as 
if  she  were  beyond  it.  Her  clothes  were  always  rather  odd, 
and  as  a  rule  slip-shod,  yet  she  wore  them  with  a  perfect  ease 
and  satisfaction.  Whatever  she  had  on,  so  long  as  she  was 
barely  tidy,  she  was  right,  beyond  remark;  such  an  aristocrat 
she  was  by  instinct. 

"You  look  so  stately,  like  a  country  Baroness,"  said  Ursula, 
laughing  with  a  little  tenderness  at  her  mother's  naive  puz- 
zled air. 

"Just  like  a  country  Baroness!"  chimed  in  Gudrun.  Now 
the  mother's  natural  hauteur  became  self-conscious,  and  the 
girls  shrieked  again. 

"Go  home,  you  pair  of  idiots,  great  giggling  idiots!"  cried 
the  father,  inflamed  with  irritation. 

"Mm-m-er!"  booed  Ursula,  pulling  a  face  at  his  crossness. 

The  yellow  lights  danced  in  his  eyes,  he  leaned  forward  in 
real  rage. 

"Don't  be  so  silly  as  to  take  any  notice  of  the  great  gabies," 
said  Mrs.  Brangwen,  turning  on  her  way. 

"I'll  see  if  I'm  going  to  be  followed  by  a  pair  of  giggling 
yelling  jackanapes,"  he  cried  vengefully. 

The  girls  stood  still,  laughing  helplessly  at  his  fury,  upon 
the  path  beside  the  hedge. 

"Why  you're  as  silly  as  they  are,  to  take  any  notice,"  said 
Mrs.  Brangwen,  also  becoming  angry  now  he  was  really  enraged. 

"There  are  some  people  coming,  father,"  cried  Ursula, 
with  mocking  warning.  He  glanced  round  quickly,  and  went 
on  to  join  his  wife,  walking  stiff  with  rage.  And  the  girls 
followed,  weak  with  laughter. 

When  the  people  had  passed  by,  Brangwen  cried  in  a  loud, 
stupid  voice: 

"I'm  going  back  home  if  there's  any  more  of  this.  I'm 
damned  if  I'm  going  to  be  made  a  fool  of  in  this  fashion,  in 
the  public  road." 

He  was  really  out  of  temper.  At  the  sound  of  his  blind, 
vindictive  voice,  the  laughter  suddenly  left  the  girls,  and  their 
hearts  contracted  with  contempt.  They  hated  his  words  "in 
the  public  road."  What  did  they  care  for  the  public  road? — 
But  Gudrun  was  conciliatory. 


172  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"But  we  weren't  laughing  to  hurt  you,"  she  cried,  with  an 
uncouth  gentleness  which  made  her  parents  uncomfortable. 
"We  were  laughing  because  we're  fond  of  you." 

"We'll  walk  on  in  front,  if  they  are  so  touchy,"  said  Ursula, 
angry.  And  in  this  wise  they  arrived  at  Willey  Water.  The 
lake  was  blue  and  fair,  the  meadows  sloped  down  in  sunshine 
on  one  side,  the  thick  dark  woods  dropped  steeply  on  the 
other.  The  little  pleasure-launch  was  fussing  out  from  the 
shore,  twanging  its  music,  crowded  with  people,  flapping  its 
paddles.  Near  the  boat-house  was  a  throng  of  gaily-dressed 
persons,  small  in  the  distance.  And  on  the  high-road,  some  of 
the  common  people  were  standing  along  the  hedge,  looking  at 
the  festivity  beyond,  enviously,  like  souls  not  admitted  to 
paradise. 

"My  eye!"  said  Gudrun,  sotto  voce,  looking  at  the  motley 
of  guests,  "there's  a  pretty  crowd  if  you  like!  Imagine  your- 
self in  the  midst  of  that,  my  dear." 

Gudrun's  apprehensive  horror  of  people  in  the  mass  un- 
nerved Ursula.      "It  looks  rather  awful,"  she  said  anxiously. 

"And  imagine  what  they'll  be  like — imagine.'"  said  Gudrun, 
still  in  that  unnerving,  subdued  voice.  Yet  she  advanced  de- 
terminedly. 

"I  suppose  we  can  get  away  from  them,"  said  Ursula 
anxiously. 

"We're  in  a  pretty  fix  if  we  can't,"  said  Gudrun.  Her 
extreme  ironic  loathing  and  apprehension  was  very  trying  to 
Ursula. 

"We  needn't  stay,"  she  said. 

"I  certainly  shan't  stay  five  minutes  among  that  little 
lot,"  said  Gudrun.  They  advanced  nearer,  till  they  saw 
policemen  at  the  gates. 

"Policemen  to  keep  you  in,  too!"  said  Gudrun.  "My 
word,  this  is  a  beautiful  affair." 

"We'd  better  look  after  father  and  mother,"  said  Ursula 
anxiously. 

"Mother's  perfectly  capable  of  getting  through  this  little 
celebration,"  said  Gudrun  with  some  contempt. 

But  Ursula  knew  that  her  father  felt  uncouth  and  angry 
and  unhappy,  so  she  was  far  from  her  ease.      They  waited 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  173 

outside  the  gate  till  their  parents  came  up.  The  tall,  thin 
man  in  his  crumpled  clothes,  was  unnerved  and  irritable  as  a 
boy,  finding  himself  on  the  brink  of  this  social  function.  He 
did  not  feel  a  gentleman,  he  did  not  feel  anything  except  pure 
exasperation. 

Ursula  took  her  place  at  his  side,  they  gave  their  tickets 
to  the  policeman,  and  passed  in  on  to  the  grass,  four  abreast; 
the  tall,  hot,  ruddy-dark  man  with  his  narrow  boyish  brow 
drawn  with  irritation,  the  fresh-faced  easy  woman,  perfectly 
collected,  though  her  hair  was  slipping  on  one  side,  then 
Gudrun,  her  eyes  round  and  dark  and  staring,  her  full  soft 
face  impassive,  almost  sulky,  so  that  she  seemed  to  be  back- 
ing away  in  antagonism  even  whilst  she  was  advancing;  and 
then  Ursula,  with  the  odd,  brilliant,  dazzled  look  on  her  face, 
that  always  came  when  she  was  in  some  false  situation. 

Birkin  was  the  good  angel.  He  came  smiling  to  them 
with  his  affected  social  grace,  that  somehow  was  never  quite 
right.  But  he  took  off  his  hat  and  smiled  at  them  with  a 
real  smile  in  his  eyes,  so  that  Brangwen  cried  out  heartily  in 
relief: 

"How  do  you  do?     You're  better,  are  you?" 

"Yes,  I'm  better.  How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Brangwen?  I 
know  Gudrun  and  Ursula  very  well." 

His  eyes  smiled  full  of  natural  warmth.  He  had  a  soft, 
flattering  manner  with  women,  particularly  with  women  who 
were  not  young. 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Brangwen,  cool,  but  yet  gratified.  "I 
have  heard  them  speak  of  you  often  enough." 

He  laughed.  Gudrun  looked  aside,  feeling  she  was  being 
belittled.  People  were  standing  about  in  groups,  some 
women  were  sitting  in  the  shade  of  the  walnut  tree,  with  cups 
of  tea  in  their  hands,  a  waiter  in  evening  dress  was  hurrying 
round,  some  girls  were  simpering  with  parasols,  some  young 
men,  who  had  just  come  in  from  rowing,  were  sitting  cross- 
legged  on  the  grass,  coatless,  their  shirt-sleeves  rolled  up  in 
manly  fashion,  their  hands  resting  on  their  white  flannel 
trousers,  their  gaudy  ties  floating  about,  as  they  laughed  and 
tried  to  lx-  witty  with  the  young  damsels. 

"Why,"  thought  Gudrun  churlishly,  "don't  they  have  the 


174  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

manners  to  put  their  coats  on,  and  not  to  assume  such  inti- 
macy in  their  appearance?" 

She  abhorred  the  ordinary  young  man,  with  his  hair  plas- 
tered back,  and  his  easy-going  chumminess. 

Hermione  Roddice  came  up,  in  a  handsome  gown  of  white 
lace,  trailing  an  enormous  silk  shawl  blotched  with  great  em- 
broidered flowers,  and  balancing  an  enormous  plain  hat  on 
her  head.  She  looked  striking,  astonishing,  almost  macabre, 
so  tall,  with  the  fringe  of  her  great  cream-coloured  vividly- 
blotched  shawl  trailing  on  the  ground  after  her,  her  thick  hair 
coming  low  over  her  eyes,  her  face  strange  and  long  and  pale, 
and  the  blotches  of  brilliant  colour  drawn  round  her. 

"Doesn't  she  look  weird!"  Gudrun  heard  some  girls  titter 
behind  her.     And  she  could  have  killed  them. 

"How  do  you  do?"  sang  Hermione,  coming  up  very  kindly, 
and  glancing  slowly  over  Gudrun's  father  and  mother.  It 
was  a  trying  moment,  exasperating  for  Gudrun.  Hermione 
was  really  so  strongly  entrenched  in  her  class  superiority,  she 
could  come  up  and  know  people  out  of  simple  curiosity,  as  if 
they  were  creatures  on  exhibition.  Gudrun  would  do  the 
same  herself.  But  she  resented  being  in  the  position  when 
somebody  might  do  it  to  her. 

Hermione,  very  remarkable,  and  distinguishing  the  Brang- 
wens  very  much,  led  them  along  to  where  Laura  Crich  stood 
receiving  the  guests. 

"This  is  Mrs.  Brangwen,"  sang  Hermione,  and  Laura,  who 
wore  a  stiff  embroidered  linen  dress,  shook  hands  and  said  she 
was  glad  to  see  her.  Then  Gerald  came  up,  dressed  in  white, 
with  a  black  and  brown  blazer,  and  looking  handsome.  He, 
too,  was  introduced  to  the  Brangwen  parents,  and  immediately 
he  spoke  to  Mrs.  Brangwen  as  if  she  were  a  lady,  and  to 
Brangwen  as  if  he  were  not  a  gentleman.  Gerald  was  so 
obvious  in  his  demeanour.  He  had  to  shake  hands  with  his 
left  hand,  because  he  had  hurt  his  right,  and  carried  it,  ban- 
daged up,  in  the  pocket  of  his  jacket.  Gudrun  was  very 
thankful  that  none  of  her  party  asked  him  what  was  the  mat- 
ter with  the  hand. 

The  steam  launch  was  fussing  in,  all  its  music  jingling, 
people  calling  excitedly  from  on  board.      Gerald  went  to  see 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  175 

to  the  debarkation,  Birkin  was  getting  tea  for  Mrs.  Brangwen, 
Brangwen  had  joined  a  Grammar  School  group,  Hermione  was 
sitting  down  by  their  mother,  the  girls  went  to  the  landing- 
stage  to  watch  the  launch  come  in. 

She  hooted  and  tooted  gaily,  then  her  paddles  were  silent,  the 
ropes  were  thrown  ashore,  she  drifted  in  with  a  little  bump. 
Immediately  the  passengers  crowded  excitedly  to  come  ashore. 

"Wait  a  minute,  wait  a  minute,"  shouted  Gerald  in  sharp 
command. 

They  must  wait  till  the  boat  was  tight  on  the  ropes,  till 
the  small  gangway  was  put  out.  Then  they  streamed  ashore, 
clamouring  as  if  they  had  come  from  America. 

"Oh,  it's  ao  nice!"  the  young  girls  were  crying.  "It's 
quite  lovely!" 

The  waiters  from  on  board  ran  out  to  the  boat-house  with 
baskets,  the  captain  lounged  on  the  little  bridge.  Seeing  all 
safe,  Gerald  came  to  Gudrun  and  Ursula. 

"You  wouldn't  care  to  go  on  board  for  the  next  trip,  and 
have  tea  there?"  he  asked. 

"No,  thanks,"  said  Gudrun  coldly. 

"You  don't  care  for  the  water?" 

"For  the  water?     Yes,  I  like  it  very  much." 

He  looked  at  her,  his  eyes  searching. 

"You  don't  care  for  going  on  a  launch,  then?" 

She  was  slow  in  answering,  and  then  she  spoke  slowly. 

"No,"  she  said.  "I  can't  say  that  I  do."  Her  colour 
was  high,  she  seemed  angry  about  something. 

"Un  peu  trop  de  monde,"  said  Ursula,  explaining. 

"Eh?  Trop  de  monde!"  He  laughed  shortly.  "Yes, 
there's  a  fair  number  of  'em." 

Gudrun  turned  on  him  brilliantly. 

"Have  you  ever  been  from  Westminster  Bridge  to  Rich- 
mond on  one  of  the  Thames  steamers?"  she  cried. 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  can't  say  I  have." 

"Well,  it's  one  of  the  most  vile  experiences  I've  ever  had." 
She  spoke  rapidly  and  excitedly,  the  colour  high  in  her  cheeks. 
"There  was  absolutely  nowhere  to  sit  down,  nowhere,  a  man 
just  above  sang  'Rocked  in  the  Cradle  of  the  Deep'  the 
whole  way;    he  was  blind  and  he  had  a  small  organ,  one  of 


176  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

those  portable  organs,  and  he  expected  money;  so  you  can 
imagine  what  that  was  like;  there  came  a  constant  smell 
of  luncheon  from  below,  and  puffs  of  hot  oily  machinery; 
the  journey  took  hours  and  hours  and  hours;  and  for  miles, 
literally  for  miles,  dreadful  boys  ran  with  us  on  the  shore, 
in  that  awful  Thames  mud,  going  in  up  to  the  waist — they 
had  their  trousers  turned  back,  and  down  they  went  up  to 
their  hips  in  that  indescribable  Thames  mud,  their  faces 
always  turned  to  us,  and  screaming,  exactly  like  carrion 
creatures,  screaming  "Ere  y'are  sir,  'ere  y'are  sir,  'ere  y'are 
sir,'  exactly  like  some  foul  carrion  objects,  perfectly  obscene; 
and  paterfamilias  on  board,  laughing  when  the  boys  went 
right  down  in  that  awful  mud,  occasionally  throwing  them 
a  ha'penny.  And  if  you'd  seen  the  intent  look  on  the  faces 
of  these  boys,  and  the  way  they  darted  in  the  filth  when 
a  coin  was  flung — really,  no  vulture  or  jackal  could  dream 
of  approaching  them,  for  foulness.  I  never  would  go  on  a 
pleasure  boat  again — never." 

Gerald  watched  her  all  the  time  she  spoke,  his  eyes  glit- 
tering with  faint  rousedness.  It  was  not  so  much  what 
she  said;  it  was  she  herself  who  roused  him,  roused  him  with 
a  small,  vivid  pricking. 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  "every  civilized  body  is  bound  to 
have  its  vermin." 

"Why?"  cried  Ursula.      "/  don't  have  vermin." 

"And  it's  not  that — it's  the  quality  of  the  whole  thing — 
paterfamilias  laughing  and  thinking  it  sport,  and  throwing 
the  ha'pennies,  and  materfamilias  spreading  her  fat  little 
knees  and  eating,  continually  eating — "  replied  Gudrun. 

"Yes,"  said  Ursula.  "It  isn't  the  boys  so  much  who  are 
vermin;  it's  the  people  themselves,  the  whole  body  politic, 
as  you  call  it." 

Gerald  laughed. 

"Never  mind,"  he  said.      "You  shan't  go  on  the  launch." 

Gudrun  flushed  quickly  at  his  rebuke. 

There  were  a  few  moments  of  silence.  Gerald,  like  a 
sentinel,  was  watching  the  people  who  were  going  on  to  the 
boat.  He  was  very  good-looking  and  self-contained,  but  his 
air  of  soldierly  alertness  was  rather  irritating. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  177 

"Will  you  have  tea  here,  then,  or  go  across  to  the  house, 
where  there's  a  tent  on  the  lawn?"  he  asked. 

"Can't  we  have  a  rowing  boat,  and  get  out?"  asked 
Ursula,  who  was  always  rushing  in  too  fast. 

"To  get  out?"   smiled  Gerald. 

"You  see,"  cried  Gudrun,  flushing  at  Ursula's  out-spoken 
rudeness,  "we  don't  know  the  people,  we  are  almost  complete 
strangers  here." 

"Oh,  I  can  soon  set  you  up  with  a  few  acquaintances," 
he  said  easily. 

Gudrun  looked  at  him,  to  see  if  it  were  ill-meant.  Then 
>he  smiled  at  him. 

"Ah,"  she  said,  "you  know  what  we  mean.  Can't  we 
go  up  there,  and  explore  that  coast?"  She  pointed  to  a  grove 
on  the  hillock  of  the  meadow-side,  near  the  shore,  half  way 
down  the  lake.  "That  looks  perfectly  lovely.  We  might 
even  bathe.  Isn't  it  beautiful  in  this  light! — Really,  it's 
like  one  of  the  reaches  of  the  Nile — as  one  imagines  the  Nile." 

Gerald  smiled  at  her  factitious  enthusiasm  for  the  distant 
spot. 

"You're  sure  it's  far  enough  off?"  he  asked  ironically, 
adding  at  once:  "Yes,  you  might  go  there,  if  we  could  get 
a  boat.      They  seem  to  be  all  out." 

He  looked  round  the  lake  and  counted  the  rowing  boats 
on  its  surface. 

"How  lovely  it  would  be!"   cried  Ursula  wistfully. 

"And  don't  you  want  tea?"   he  said. 

"Oh,"  said  Gudrun,  "we  could  just  drink  a  cup,  and  be 
off." 

He  looked  from  one  to  the  other,  smiling.  He  was  some- 
what offended — yet  sporting. 

"Can  you  manage  a  boat  pretty  well?"   he  asked. 

"Yes,"  replied  Gudrun,  coldly,  "pretty  well." 

"Oh  yes,"  cried  Ursula.  "We  can  both  of  us  row  like 
water-spiders." 

"You  can? — There's  a  light  little  canoe  of  mine,  that  I 
didn't  take  out  for  fear  somebody  should  drown  themselves. 
Do  you  think  you'd  be  safe  in  that?" 

"Oh  perfectly,"  said  Gudrun. 


178  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"What  an  angel!"   cried  Ursula. 

"Don't,  for  my  sake,  have  an  accident — because  I'm 
responsible  for  the  water." 

"Sure,"  pledged  Gudrun. 

"Besides,  we  can  both  swim  quite  well,"  said  Ursula. 

"Well — then  I'll  get  them  to  put  you  up  a  tea-basket, 
and  you  can  picnic  all  to  yourselves, — that's  the  idea,  isn't  it?" 
"How  fearfully  good!  How  frightfully  nice  if  you  could!" 
cried  Gudrun  warmly,  her  colour  flushing  up  again.  It  made 
the  blood  stir  in  his  veins,  the  subtle  way  she  turned  to  him 
and  infused  her  gratitude  into  his  body. 

"Where's  Birkin?"  he  said,  his  eyes  twinkling.  "He 
might  help  me  to  get  it  down." 

"But  what  about  your  hand!  Isn't  it  hurt!"  asked  Gudrun, 
rather  muted,  as  if  avoiding  the  intimacy.  This  was  the 
first  time  the  hurt  had  been  mentioned.  The  curious  way 
she  skirted  round  the  subject  sent  a  new,  subtle  caress 
through  his  veins.  He  took  his  hand  out  of  his  pocket. 
It  was  bandaged.  He  looked  at  it,  then  put  it  in  his  pocket 
again.  Gudrun  quivered  at  the  sight  of  the  wrapped  up 
paw. 

"Oh,  I  can  manage  with  one  hand.  The  canoe  is  as  light 
as  a  feather,"  he  said.     "There's  Rupert! — Rupert!" 

Birkin  turned  from  his  social  duties  and  came  towards 
them. 

"What  have  you  done  to  it!"  asked  Ursula,  who  had  been 
aching  to  put  the  question  for  the  last  half  hour. 

"To  my  hand?"  said  Gerald.  "I  trapped  it  in  some 
machinery." 

"Ugh!"   said  Ursula.      "And  did  it  hurt  much?" 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "It  did  at  the  time.  It's  getting  better 
now.     It  crushed  the  fingers." 

"Oh,"  cried  Ursula,  as  if  in  pain,  "I  hate  people  who 
hurt  themselves.      I  can  feel  it."      And  she  shook  her  hand. 

"What  do  you  want?"   said  Birkin. 

The  two  men  carried  down  the  slim  brown  boat,  and  set  it 
on  the  water. 

"You're  quite  sure  you'll  be  safe  in  it?"    Gerald  asked. 

"Quite  sure,"  said  Gudrun.      "I  wouldn't  be  so  mean  as 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  179 

to  take  it,  if  there  was  the  slightest  doubt.  But  I've  had 
a  canoe  at  Arundel,  and  I  assure  you  I'm  perfectly  safe." 

So  saying,  having  given  her  word  like  a  man,  she  and 
Ursula  entered  the  frail  craft,  and  pushed  gently  off.  The 
two  men  stood  watching  them.  Gudrun  was  paddling. 
She  knew  the  men  were  watching  her,  and  it  made  her  slow 
and  rather  clumsy.      The  colour  flew  in  her  face  like  a  flag. 

"Thanks  awfully,"  she  called  back  to  him,  from  the  water, 
as  the  boat  slid  away.     "It's  lovely — like  sitting  in  a  leaf." 

He  laughed  at  the  fancy.  Her  voice  was  shrill  and 
strange,  calling  from  the  distance.  He  watched  her  as  she 
paddled  away.  There  was  something  childlike  about  her, 
trustful  and  deferential,  like  a  child.  He  watched  her  all 
the  while,  as  she  rowed.  And  to  Gudrun  it  was  a  real  delight, 
in  make-belief,  to  be  the  childlike,  clinging  woman  to  the  man 
who  stood  there  on  the  quay,  so  goodlooking  and  efficient 
in  his  white  clothes,  and  moreover  the  most  important  man 
she  knew  at  the  moment.  She  did  not  take  any  notice  of  the 
wavering,  indistinct,  lambent  Birkin,  who  stood  at  his  side. 
One  figure  at  a  time  occupied  the  field  of  her  attention. 

The  boat  rustled  lightly  along  the  water.  They  passed 
the  bathers  whose  striped  tents  stood  between  the  willows 
of  the  meadow's  edge,  and  drew  along  the  open  shore,  past 
the  meadows  that  sloped  golden  in  the  light  of  the  already 
late  afternoon.  Other  boats  were  stealing  under  the  wooded 
shore  opposite,  they  could  hear  people's  laughter  and  voices. 
But  Gudrun  rowed  on  towards  the  clump  of  trees  that  balanced 
perfect  in  the  distance,  in  the  golden  light. 

The  sisters  found  a  little  place  where  a  tiny  stream  flowed 
into  the  lake,  with  reeds  and  flowery  marsh  of  pink  willow 
herb,  and  a  gravelly  bank  to  the  side.  Here  they  ran  deli- 
cately ashore,  with  their  frail  boat,  the  two  girls  took  off  their 
shoes  and  stockings  and  went  through  the  water's  edge  to  the 
grass.  The  tiny  ripples  of  the  lake  were  warm  and  clear,  they 
lifted  their  boat  on  to  the  bank,  and  looked  round  with  joy. 
They  were  quite  alone  in  a  forsaken  little  stream-mouth, 
and  on  the  knoll  just  behind  was  the  clump  of  trees. 

"We  will  bathe  just  for  a  moment,"  said  Ursula,  "and 
then  we'll  have  tea." 


180  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

They  looked  round.  Nobody  could  notice  them,  or 
could  come  up  in  time  to  see  them.  In  less  than  a  minute 
Ursula  had  thrown  off  her  clothes  and  had  slipped  naked  into 
the  water,  and  was  swimming  out.  Quickly,  Gudrun  joined 
her.  They  swam  silently  and  blissfully  for  a  few  minutes, 
circling  round  their  little  stream-mouth.  Then  they  slipped 
ashore  and  ran  into  the  grove  again,  like  nymphs. 

"How  lovely  it  is  to  be  free,"  said  Ursula,  running  swiftly 
here  and  there  between  the  tree  trunks,  quite  naked,  her 
hair  blowing  loose.  The  grove  was  of  beech-trees,  big  and 
splendid,  a  steel-grey  scaffolding  of  trunks  and  boughs,  with 
level  sprays  of  strong  green  here  and  there,  whilst  through 
the  northern  side  the  distance  glimmered  open  as  through 
a  window. 

When  they  had  run  and  danced  themselves  dry,  the  girls 
quickly  dressed  and  sat  down  to  the  fragrant  tea.  They  sat 
on  the  northern  side  of  the  grove,  in  the  yellow  sunshine  facing 
the  slope  of  the  grassy  hill,  alone  in  a  little  wild  world  of  their 
own.  The  tea  was  hot  and  aromatic,  there  were  delicious 
little  sandwiches  of  cucumber  and  of  caviare,  and  winy  cakes. 

"Are  you  happy,  Prune?"  cried  Ursula  in  delight,  looking 
at  her  sister. 

"Ursula,  I'm  perfectly  happy,"  replied  Gudrun  gravely, 
looking  at  the  westering  sun. 

"So  am  I." 

When  they  were  together,  doing  the  things  they  enjoyed, 
the  two  sisters  were  quite  complete  in  a  perfect  world  of  their 
own.  And  this  was  one  of  the  perfect  moments  of  freedom 
and  delight,  such  as  children  alone  know,  when  all  seems  a 
perfect  and  blissful  adventure. 

When  they  had  finished  tea,  the  two  girls  sat  on,  silent  and 
serene.  Then  Ursula,  who  had  a  beautiful  strong  voice, 
began  to  sing  to  herself,  softly:  "Annchen  von  Tharau." 
Gudrun  listened,  as  she  sat  beneath  the  trees,  and  the  yearning 
came  into  her  heart.  Ursula  seemed  so  peaceful  and  sufficient 
unto  herself,  sitting  there  unconsciously  crooning  her  song, 
strong  and  unquestioned  at  the  centre  of  her  own  universe. 
And  Gudrun  felt  herself  outside.  Always  this  desolating, 
agonised  feeling,  that  she  was  outside  of  life,  an  onlooker, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  181 

whilst  Ursula  was  a  partner,  caused  Gudrun  to  suffer  from 
a  sense  of  her  own  negation,  and  made  her,  that  she  must 
always  demand  the  other  to  be  aware  of  her,  to  be  in  connec- 
tion with  her. 

"Do  you  mind  if  I  do  Dalcroze  to  that  tune,  Hurtler?" 
she  asked  in  a  curious  muted  tone,  scarce  moving  her  lips. 

"What  did  you  say?"  asked  Ursula,  looking  up  in  peace- 
ful surprise. 

"Will  you  sing  while  I  do  Dalcroze?"  said  Gudrun,  suffer- 
ing at  having  to  repeat  herself. 

Ursula  thought  a  moment,  gathering  her  straying  wits 
together. 

"While  you  do — ?"   she  asked  vaguely. 

"Dalcroze  movements,"  said  Gudrun,  suffering  tortures 
of  self-consciousness,  even  because  of  her  sister. 

"Oh  Dalcroze!  I  couldn't  catch  the  name.  Do — I  should 
love  to  see  you,"  cried  Ursula,  with  childish  surprised  bright- 
ness.    "What  shall  I  sing?" 

"Sing  anything  you  like,  and  I'll  take  the  rhythm  from  it." 

But  Ursula  could  not  for  her  life  think  of  anything  to  sing. 
However,  she  suddenly  began,  in  a  laughing,  teasing  voice: 

"My  love — is  a  high-born  lady — " 

Gudrun,  looking  as  if  some  invisible  chain  weighed  on  her 
hands  and  feet,  began  slowly  to  dance  in  the  eurythmic  manner, 
pulsing  and  fluttering  rhythmically  with  her  feet,  making 
slow,  regular  gestures  with  her  hands  and  arms,  now  spread- 
ing her  arms  wide,  now  raising  them  above  her  head,  now 
flinging  them  softly  apart,  and  lifting  her  face,  her  feet  all 
the  time  beating  and  running  to  the  measure  of  the  song, 
as  if  it  were  some  strange  incantation,  her  white,  rapt  form 
drifting  here  and  there  in  a  strange  impulsive  rhapsody, 
seeming  to  l>e  lifted  on  a  breeze  of  incantation,  shuddering 
with  strange  little  runs.  Ursula  sat  on  the  grass,  her  mouth 
open  in  her  singing,  her  eyes  laughing  as  if  she  thought  it 
was  a  great  joke,  but  a  yellow  light  flashing  up  in  them,  as 
she  caught  some  of  the  unconscious  ritualistic  suggestion  of  the 
complex  shuddering  and  waving  and  drifting  of  her  sister's 
white  form,  that  was  clutched  in  pure,  mindless,  tossing 
rhythm,  and  a  will  set  powerful  in  a  kind  of  hypnotic  influence. 


182  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"My  love  is  a  high-born  lady — She  is-s-s — rather  dark 
than  shady — "  rang  out  Ursula's  laughing,  satiric  song, 
and  quicker,  fiercer  went  Gudrun  in  the  dance,  stamping 
as  if  she  were  trying  to  throw  off  some  bond,  flinging  her 
hands  suddenly  and  stamping  again,  then  rushing  with  face 
uplifted  and  throat  full  and  beautiful,  and  eyes  half  closed, 
sightless.  The  sun  was  low  and  yellow,  sinking  down,  and 
in  the  sky  floated  a  thin,  ineffectual  moon. 

Ursula  was  quite  absorbed  in  her  song,  when  suddenly 
Gudrun  stopped  and  said  mildly,  ironically: 

"Ursula?" 

"Yes?"    said  Ursula,  opening  her  eyes  out  of  the  trance. 

Gudrun  was  standing  still  and  pointing,  a  mocking  smile 
on  her  face,  towards  the  side. 

"Ugh!"   cried  Ursula  in  sudden  panic,  starting  to  her  feet. 

"They're  quite  all  right,"  rang  out  Gudrun's  sardonic 
voice. 

On  the  left  stood  a  little  cluster  of  Highland  cattle,  vividly 
coloured  and  fleecy  in  the  evening  light,  their  horns  branching 
into  the  sky,  pushing  forward  their  muzzles  inquisitively, 
to  know  what  it  was  all  about.  Their  eyes  glittered  through 
their  tangle  of  hair,  their  naked  nostrils  were  full  of  shadow. 

"Won't  they  do  anything?"   cried  Ursula  in  fear. 

Gudrun,  who  was  usually  frightened  of  cattle,  now  shook 
her  head  in  a  queer,  half-doubtful,  half-sardonic  motion,  a 
faint  smile  round  her  mouth. 

"Don't  they  look  charming,  Ursula?"  cried  Gudrun, 
in  a  high,  strident  voice,  something  like  the  scream  of  a  sea-gull. 

"Charming,"  cried  Ursula  in  trepidation.  "But  won't 
they  do  anything  to  us?" 

Again  Gudrun  looked  at  her  sister  with  an  enigmatic 
smile,  and  shook  her  head. 

"I'm  sure  they  won't,"  she  said,  as  if  she  had  to  convince 
herself  also,  and  yet,  as  if  she  were  confident  of  some  secret 
power  in  herself,  and  had  to  put  it  to  the  test.  "Sit  down 
and  sing  again,"  she  called  in  her  high,  strident  voice. 

"I'm  frightened,"  cried  Ursula,  in  a  pathetic  voice,  watching 
the  group  of  sturdy  short  cattle,  that  stood  with  their  knees 
planted,  and  watched  with  their  dark,  wicked  eyes,  through 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  183 

the  matted  fringe  of  their  hair.  Nevertheless,  she  sank  down 
again,  in  her  former  posture. 

"They  are  quite  safe,"  came  Gudrun's  high  call.  "Sing 
something,  you've  only  to  sing  something." 

It  was  evident  she  had  a  strange  passion  to  dance  before 
the  sturdy,  handsome  cattle. 

Ursula  began  to  sing,  in  a  false  quavering  voice : 

'It's  a  long  long  way  to  Tipperary " 

She  sounded  purely  anxious.  Nevertheless  Gudrun, 
with  her  arms  outspread  and  her  face  uplifted,  went  in  a 
strange  palpitating  dance  towards  the  cattle,  lifting  her  body 
towards  them  as  if  in  a  spell,  her  feet  pulsing  as  if  in  some 
little  frenzy  of  unconscious  sensation,  her  arms,  her  wrists, 
her  hands  stretching  and  heaving  and  falling  and  reaching 
and  reaching  and  falling,  her  breasts  lifted  and  shaken  towards 
the  cattle,  her  throat  exposed  as  in  some  voluptuous  ecstasy 
towards  them,  whilst  she  drifted  imperceptibly  nearer, 
an  uncanny  white  figure,  towards  them,  carried  away  in  its 
own  rapt  trance,  ebbing  in  strange  fluctuations  upon  the 
cattle,  that  waited,  and  ducked  their  heads  a  little  in  sudden 
contraction  from  her,  watching  all  the  time  as  if  hypnotised, 
their  bare  horns  branching  in  the  clear  light,  as  the  white 
figure  of  the  woman  ebbed  upon  them,  in  the  slow,  hypno- 
tising convulsion  of  the  dance.  She  could  feel  them  just 
in  front  of  her,  it  was  as  if  she  had  the  electric  pulse  from 
their  breasts  running  into  her  hands.  Soon  she  would  touch 
them,  actually  touch  them.  A  terrible  shiver  of  fear  and 
pleasure  went  through  her.  And  all  the  while,  Ursula,  spell- 
bound, kept  up  her  high-pitched  thin,  irrelevant  song,  which 
pierced  the  fading  evening  like  an  incantation. 

Gudrun  could  hear  the  cattle  breathing  heavily  with  help- 
less fear  and  fascination.  Oh,  they  were  brave  little  beasts, 
these  wild  Scotch  bullocks,  wild  and  fleecy.  Suddenly  one 
of  them  snorted,  ducked  its  head,  and  backed. 

"Hue!  Hi — eee!"  came  a  sudden  loud  shout  from  the 
edge  of  the  grove.  The  cattle  broke  and  fell  back  quite 
spontaneously,  went  running  up  the  hill,  their  fleece  waving 
like  fire  to  their  motion.  Gudrun  stood  suspended  out  on 
the  grass,  Ursula  rose  to  her  feet. 


184  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

It  was  Gerald  and  Birkin  come  to  find  them,  and  Gerald 
had  cried  out  to  frighten  off  the  cattle. 

"What  do  you  think  you're  doing?"  he  now  called,  in 
a  high,  wondering  vexed  tone. 

"Why  have  you  come?"  came  back  Gudrun's  strident 
cry  of  anger. 

"What  do  you  think  you  were  doing?"  Gerald  repeated, 
automatically. 

"We  were  doing  eurythmics,"  laughed  Ursula,  in  a 
shaken  voice. 

Gudrun  stood  aloof,  looking  at  them  with  large  dark  eyes 
of  resentment,  suspended  for  a  few  moments.  Then  she 
walked  away  up  the  hill,  after  the  cattle,  which  had  gathered 
in  a  little,  spell-bound  cluster  higher  up. 

"Where  are  you  going?"  Gerald  called  after  her.  And 
he  followed  her  up  the  hill-side.  The  sun  had  gone  behind 
the  hill,  and  shadows  were  clinging  to  the  earth,  the  sky  above 
was  full  of  travelling  light. 

"A  poor  song  for  a  dance,"  said  Birkin  to  Ursula,  standing 
before  her  with  a  sardonic,  flickering  laugh  on  his  face.  And 
in  another  second,  he  was  singing  softly  to  himself,  and 
dancing  a  grotesque  step-dance  in  front  of  her,  his  limbs 
and  body  shaking  loose,  his  face  flickering  palely,  a  constant 
thing,  whilst  his  feet  beat  a  rapid  mocking  tattoo,  and  his 
body  seemed  to  hang  all  loose  and  quaking  in  between,  like 
a  shadow. 

"I  think  we've  all  gone  mad,"  she  said,  laughing  rather 
frightened. 

"Pity  we  aren't  madder,"  he  answered,  as  he  kept  up  the 
incessant  shaking  dance.  Then  suddenly  he  leaned  up  to 
her  and  kissed  her  fingers  lightly,  putting  his  face  to  hers 
and  looking  into  her  eyes  with  a  pale  grin.  She  stepped  back, 
affronted. 

"Offended — ?"  he  asked  ironically,  suddenly  going  quite 
still  and  reserved  again.  "I  thought  you  liked  the  light 
fantastic." 

"Not  like  that,"  she  said,  confused  and  bewildered,  almost 
affronted.  Yet  somewhere  inside  her  she  was  fascinated  by 
the  sight  of  his  loose,  vibrating  body,  perfectly  abandoned 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  185 

to  its  own  dropping  and  swinging,  and  by  the  pallid,  sardonic- 
smiling  face  above.  Yet  automatically  she  stiffened  herself 
away,  and  disapproved.  It  seemed  almost  an  obscenity, 
in  a  man  who  talked  as  a  rule  so  very  seriously. 

"Why  not  like  that?"  he  mocked.  And  immediately 
he  dropped  again  into  the  incredibly  rapid,  slack-waggling 
dance,  watching  her  malevolently.  And  moving  in  the 
rapid,  stationary  dance,  he  came  a  little  nearer,  and  reached 
forward  with  an  incredibly  mocking,  satiric  gleam  on  his 
face,  and  would  have  kissed  her  again,  had  she  not  started 
back. 

"No,  don't!"   she  cried,  really  afraid. 

"Cordelia  after  all,"  he  said  satirically.  She  was  stung, 
as  if  this  were  an  insult.  She  knew  he  intended  it  as  such, 
and  it  bewildered  her. 

"And  you,"  she  cried  in  retort,  "why  do  you  always  take 
your  soul  in  your  mouth,  so  frightfully  full!" 

"So  that  I  can  spit  it  out  the  more  readily,"  he  said, 
pleased  by  his  own  retort. 

Gerald  Crich,  his  face  narrowing  to  an  intent  gleam, 
followed  up  the  hill  with  quick  strides,  straight  after  Gudrun. 
The  cattle  stood  with  their  noses  together  on  the  brow  of 
a  slope,  watching  the  scene  below,  the  men  in  white  hovering 
about  the  white  forms  of  the  woman,  watching  above  all 
Gudrun,  who  was  advancing  slowly  towards  them.  She 
stood  a  moment,  glancing  back  at  Gerald,  and  then  at  the 
cattle. 

Then  in  a  sudden  motion,  she  lifted  her  arms  and  rushed 
sheer  upon  the  long-horned  bullocks,  in  shuddering  irregular 
runs,  pausing  for  a  second  and  looking  at  them,  then  lifting 
her  hands  and  running  forward  with  a  flash,  till  they  ceased 
pawing  the  ground,  and  gave  way,  snorting  with  terror, 
lifting  their  heads  from  the  ground  and  flinging  themselves 
away,  galloping  off  into  the  evening,  becoming  tiny  in  the 
distance,  and  still  not  stopping. 

Gudrun  remained  staring  after  them,  with  a  mask-like 
defiant  face. 

"Why  do  you  want  to  drive  them  mad?"  asked  Gerald, 
coming  up  with  her. 


186  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

She  took  no  notice  of  him,  only  averted  her  face  from  him. 

"It's  not  safe,  you  know,"  he  persisted.  "They're  nasty, 
when  they  do  turn." 

"Turn  where?   Turn  away?"   she  mocked  loudly. 

"No,"  he  said,  "turn  against  you." 

"Turn  against  me?"   she  mocked. 

He  could  make  nothing  of  this. 

"Anyway,  they  gored  one  of  the  farmer's  cows  to  death, 
the  other  day,"  he  said. 

"What  do  I  care?"   she  said. 

"I  cared  though,"  he  replied,  "seeing  that  they're  my 
cattle." 

"How  are  they  yours!  You  haven't  swallowed  them. 
Give  me  one  of  them  now,"  she  said,  holding  out  her  hand. 

"You  know  where  they  are,"  he  said,  pointing  over  the  hill. 
"You  can  have  one  if  you'd  like  it  sent  to  you  later  on." 

She  looked  at  him  inscrutably. 

"You  think  I'm  afraid  of  you  and  your  cattle,  don't 
you?"    she  asked. 

His  eyes  narrowed  dangerously.  There  was  a  faint 
domineering  smile  on  his  face. 

"Why  should  I  think  that?"   he  said. 

She  was  watching  him  all  the  time  with  her  dark,  dilated, 
inchoate  eyes.  She  leaned  forward  and  swung  round  her 
arm,  catching  him  a  blow  on  the  face  with  the  back  of  her 
hand. 

"That's  why,"  she  said. 

And  she  felt  in  her  soul  an  unconquerable  lust  for  deep 
brutality  against  him.  She  shut  off  the  fear  and  dismay 
that  filled  her  conscious  mind.  She  wanted  to  do  as  she  did, 
she  was  not  going  to  be  afraid. 

He  recoiled  from  the  heavy  blow  across  the  face.  He 
became  deadly  pale,  and  a  dangerous  flame  darkened  his 
eyes.  For  some  seconds  he  could  not  speak,  his  lungs  were 
so  suffused  with  blood,  his  heart  stretched  almost  to  burst- 
ing with  a  great  gush  of  ungovernable  rage.  It  was  as  if 
some  reservoir  of  black  anger  had  burst  within  him,  and 
swamped  him. 

"You  have  struck  the  first  blow,"  he  said  at  last,  forcing 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  187 

the  words  from  his  lungs,  in  a  voice  so  soft  and  low,  it  sounded 
like  a  dream  within  her,  not  spoken  in  the  outer  air. 

"And  I  shall  strike  the  last,"  she  retorted  involuntarily, 
with  confident  assurance.  He  was  silent,  he  did  not  contradict 
her. 

She  stood  negligently,  staring  away  from  him,  into  the 
distance.  On  the  edge  of  her  consciousness  the  question  was 
asking  itself,  automatically : 

"Why  are  you  behaving  in  this  impossible  and  ridiculous 
fashion?"  But  she  was  sullen,  she  half  shoved  the  question 
out  of  herself.  She  could  not  get  it  clean  away,  so  she  felt 
self-conscious. 

Gerald,  very  pale,  was  watching  her  closely.  His  eyes 
were  lit  up  with  intent  lights,  absorbed  and  gleaming.  She 
turned  suddenly  on  him. 

"It's  you  who  make  me  behave  like  this,  you  know," 
she  said,  almost  suggestive. 

"I?   How?"  he  said. 

But  she  turned  away,  and  set  off  towards  the  lake. 
Below,  on  the  water,  lanterns  were  coming  alight,  faint 
ghosts  of  warm  flame  floating  in  the  pallor  of  the  first  twi- 
light. The  earth  was  spread  with  darkness,  like  lacquer, 
overhead  was  a  pale  sky,  all  primrose,  and  the  lake  was  pale 
as  milk  in  one  part.  Away  at  the  landing  stage,  tiniest 
points  of  coloured  rays  were  stringing  themselves  in  the  dusk. 
The  launch  was  being  illuminated.  All  round,  shadow  was 
gathering  from  the  trees. 

Gerald,  white  like  a  presence  in  his  summer  clothes,  was 
following  down  the  open  grassy  slope.  Gudrun  waited  for 
him  to  come  up.  Then  she  softly  put  out  her  hand  and 
touched  him,  saying  softly: 

"Don't  be  angry  with  me." 

A  flame  flew  over  him,  and  he  was  unconscious.  Yet 
he  stammered: 

"I'm  not  angry  with  you.     I'm  in  love  with  you." 

His  mind  was  gone,  he  grasped  for  sufficient  mechanical 
control,  to  save  himself.  She  laughed  a  silvery  little  mockery, 
yet  intolerably  caressive. 

"That's  one  way  of  putting  it,"  she  said. 


188  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

The  terrible  swooning  burden  on  his  mind,  the  awful 
swooning,  the  loss  of  all  his  control,  was  too  much  for  him. 
He  grasped  her  arm  in  his  one  hand,  as  if  his  hand  were  iron. 

"It's  all  right,  then,  is  it?"    he  said,  holding  her  arrested. 

She  looked  at  the  face  with  the  fixed  eyes,  set  before  her, 
and  her  blood  ran  cold. 

"Yes,  it's  all  right,"  she  said  softly,  as  if  drugged,  her 
voice  crooning  and  witch-like. 

He  walked  on  beside  her,  a  striding,  mindless  body.  But 
he  recovered  a  little  as  he  went.  He  suffered  badly.  He 
had  killed  his  brother  when  a  boy,  and  was  set  apart,  like 
Cain. 

They  found  Birkin  and  Ursula  sitting  together  by  the 
boats,  talking  and  laughing.  Birkin  had  been  teasing 
Ursula. 

"Do  you  smell  this  little  marsh?"  he  said,  sniffing  the 
air.  He  was  very  sensitive  to  scents,  and  quick  in  under- 
standing them. 

"It's  rather  nice,"  she  said. 

"No,"  he  replied,  "alarming." 

"Why  alarming?"   she  laughed. 

"It  seethes  and  seethes,  a  river  of  darkness,"  he  said, 
"putting  forth  lilies  and  snakes,  and  the  ignis  fatuus,  and 
rolling  all  the  time  onward.  That's  what  we  never  take 
into  count — that  it  rolls  onwards." 

"What  does?" 

"The  other  river,  the  black  river.  We  always  consider 
the  silver  river  of  life,  rolling  on  and  quickening  all  the  world 
to  a  brightness,  on  and  on  to  heaven,  flowing  into  a  bright 
eternal  sea,  a  heaven  of  angels  thronging. — But  the  other 
is  our  real  reality — " 

"But  what  other?   I  don't  see  any  other,"  said  Ursula. 

"It  is  your  reality,  nevertheless,"  he  said,  "that  dark 
river  of  dissolution. — You  see  it  rolls  in  us  just  as  the  other 
rolls — the  black  river  of  corruption.  And  our  flowers  are 
of  this — our  sea-born  Aphrodite,  all  our  white  phosphorescent 
flowers  of  sensuous  perfection,  all  our  reality,  nowadays." 

"You  mean  that  Aphrodite  is  really  deathly?"  asked 
Ursula. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  189 

"I  mean  she  is  the  flowering  mystery  of  the  death-process, 
yes,"  he  replied.  "When  the  stream  of  synthetic  creation 
lapses,  we  find  ourselves  part  of  the  inverse  process,  the  blood 
of  destructive  creation.  Aphrodite  is  born  in  the  first  spasm 
of  universal  dissolution — then  the  snakes  and  swans  and 
lotus — marsh-flowers — and  Gudrun  and  Gerald — born  in  the 
process  of  destructive  creation." 

"And  you  and  me — ?"   she  asked. 

"Probably,"  he  replied.  "In  part,  certainly.  Whether 
we  are  that,  in  toto,  I  don't  yet  know." 

"You  mean  we  are  flowers  of  dissolution — fleurs  du  mal? — 
I  don't  feel  as  if  I  were,"  she  protested. 

He  was  silent  for  a  time. 

"I  don't  feel  as  if  we  were,  altogether,"  he  replied.  "Some 
people  are  pure  flowers  of  dark  corruption — lilies.  But 
there  ought  to  be  some  roses,  warm  and  flamy. — You  know 
Herakleitos  says  'a  dry  soul  is  best.'  I  know  so  well  what 
that  means.     Do  you?" 

"I'm  not  sure,"  Ursula  replied.  "But  what  if  people 
are  all  flowers  of  dissolution — when  they're  flowers  at  all — 
what  difference  does  it  make?" 

"No  difference — and  all  the  difference.  Dissolution 
rolls  on,  just  as  production  does,"  he  said.  "It  is  a  pro- 
gressive process — and  it  ends  in  universal  nothing — the  end 
of  the  world,  if  you  like. — But  why  isn't  the  end  of  the  world 
as  good  as  the  beginning?" 

"I  suppose  it  isn't,"  said  Ursula,  rather  angry. 

"Oh  yes,  ultimately,"  he  said.  "It  means  a  new  cycle 
of  creation  after — but  not  for  us.  If  it  is  the  end,  then  we 
are  of  the  end — fleurs  du  mal  if  you  like.  If  we  are  fleurs 
du  mal,  we  are  not  roses  of  happiness,  and  there  you  are." 

"But  I  think  I  am,"  said  Ursula.  "I  think  I  am  a  rose 
of  happiness." 

"Ready-made?"   he  asked  ironically. 

"No — real,"  she  said,  hurt. 

"If  we  are  the  end,  we  are  not  the  beginning,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  we  are,"  she  said.  "The  beginning  comes  out 
of  the  end." 

"After  it,  not  out  of  it.     After  us,  not  out  of  us." 


190  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"You  are  a  devil,  you  know,  really,"  she  said.  "You 
want  to  destroy  our  hope.      You  want  us  to  be  deathly." 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  only  want  us  to  know  what  we  are." 

"Ha!"  she  cried  in  anger.  "You  only  want  us  to  know 
death." 

"You're  quite  right,"  said  the  soft  voice  of  Gerald,  out 
of  the  dusk  behind. 

Birkin  rose.  Gerald  and  Gudrun  came  up.  They  all 
began  to  smoke,  in  the  moments  of  silence.  One  after 
another,  Birkin  lighted  their  cigarettes.  The  match  flick- 
ered in  the  twilight,  and  they  were  all  smoking  peacefully 
by  the  water-side.  The  lake  was  dim,  the  light  dying  from 
off  it,  in  the  midst  of  the  dark  land.  The  air  all  round  was 
intangible,  neither  here  nor  there,  and  there  was  an  unreal 
noise  of  banjoes,  or  suchlike  music. 

As  the  golden  swim  of  light  overhead  died  out,  the  moon 
gained  brightness,  and  seemed  to  begin  to  smile  forth  her 
ascendancy.  The  dark  woods  on  the  opposite  shore  melted 
into  universal  shadow.  And  amid  this  universal  under- 
shadow,  there  was  a  scattered  intrusion  of  lights.  Far 
down  the  lake  were  fantastic  pale  strings  of  colour,  like  beads 
of  wan  fire,  green  and  red  and  yellow.  The  music  came  out 
in  a  little  puff,  as  the  launch,  all  illuminated,  veered  into  the 
great  shadow,  stirring  her  outlines  of  half-living  lights, 
puffing  out  her  music  in  little  drifts. 

All  were  lighting  up.  Here  and  there,  close  against  the 
faint  water,  and  at  the  far  end  of  the  lake,  where  the  water 
lay  milky  in  the  last  whiteness  of  the  sky,  and  there  was  no 
shadow,  solitary,  frail  flames  of  lanterns  floated  from  the 
unseen  boats.  There  was  a  sound  of  oars,  and  a  boat  passed 
from  the  pallor  into  the  darkness  under  the  wood,  where  her 
lanterns  seemed  to  kindle  into  fire,  hanging  in  ruddy  lovely 
globes.  And  again,  in  the  lake,  shadowy  red  gleams  hovered 
in  reflection  about  the  boat.  Everywhere  were  these  noiseless 
ruddy  creatures  of  fire  drifting  near  the  surface  of  the  water, 
caught  at  by  the  rarest,  scarce  visible  reflections. 

Birkin  brought  the  lanterns  from  the  bigger  boat,  and  the 
four  shadowy  white  figures  gathered  round,  to  light  them. 
Ursula  held  up  the  first,  Birkin  lowered  the  light  from  the  rosy, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  191 

glowing  cup  of  his  hands,  into  the  depths  of  the  lantern. 
It  was  kindled,  and  they  all  stood  back  to  look  at  the  great 
blue  moon  of  light  that  hung  from  Ursula's  hand,  easting  a 
strange  gleam  on  her  face.  It  flickered,  and  Birkin  went 
bending  over  the  well  of  light.  His  face  shone  out  like  an 
apparition,  so  unconscious,  and  again,  something  demoniacal. 
Ursula  was  dim  and  veiled,  looming  over  him. 

"That  is  all  right,"  said  his  voice  softly. 

She  held  up  the  lantern.  It  had  a  flight  of  storks  stream- 
ing through  a  turquoise  sky  of  light,  over  a  dark  earth. 

"This  is  beautiful,"  she  said. 

"Lovely,"  echoed  Gudrun,  who  wanted  to  hold  one  also, 
and  lift  it  up  full  of  beauty. 

"Light  one  for  me,"  she  said.  Gerald  stood  by  her, 
incapacitated.  Birkin  lit  the  lantern  she  held  up.  Her 
heart  beat  with  anxiety,  to  see  how  beautiful  it  would  be. 
It  was  primrose  yellow,  with  tall  straight  flowers  growing 
darkly  from  their  dark  leaves,  lifting  their  heads  into  the 
primrose  day,  while  butterflies  hovered  about  them,  in  the 
pure  clear  light. 

Gudrun  gave  a  little  cry  of  excitement,  as  if  pierced  with 
delight. 

"Isn't  it  beautiful,  oh,  isn't  it  beautiful!" 

Her  soul  was  really  pierced  with  beauty,  she  was  trans- 
lated beyond  herself.  Gerald  leaned  near  to  her,  into  her 
zone  of  light,  as  if  to  see.  He  came  close  to  her,  and  stood 
touching  her,  looking  with  her  at  the  primrose-shining  globe. 
And  she  turned  her  face  to  his,  that  was  faintly  bright  in 
the  light  of  the  lantern,  and  they  stood  together  in  one 
luminous  union,  close  together  and  ringed  round  with  light, 
all  the  rest  excluded. 

Birkin  looked  away,  and  went  to  light  Ursula's  second 
lantern.  It  had  a  pale  ruddy  sea-bottom,  with  black  crabs 
and  sea-weed  moving  sinuously  under  a  transparent  sea, 
that  passed  into  flamy  ruddiness  above. 

"You've  got  the  heavens  above,  and  the  waters  under 
the  earth,"  said  Birkin  to  her. 

"Anything  but  the  earth  itself,"  she  laughed,  watching 
his  live  hands  that  hovered  to  attend  to  the  light. 


192  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"I'm  dying  to  see  what  my  second  one  is,"  cried  Gudrun, 
in  a  vibrating,  rather  strident  voice,  that  seemed  to  repel 
the  others  from  her. 

Birkin  went  and  kindled  it.  It  was  of  a  lovely  deep  blue 
colour,  with  a  red  floor,  and  a  great  white  cuttle-fish  flowing 
in  white  soft  streams  all  over  it.  The  cuttle-fish  had  a  face 
that  stared  straight  from  the  heart  of  the  light,  very  fixed 
and  coldly  intent. 

"How  truly  terrifying!"  exclaimed  Gudrun,  in  a  voice 
of  horror.      Gerald,  at  her  side,  gave  a  low  laugh. 

"But  isn't  it  really  fearful?"   she  cried  in  dismay. 

Again  he  laughed,  and  said: 

"Change  it  with  Ursula,  for  the  crabs." 

Gudrun  was  silent  for  a  moment. 

"Ursula,"  she  said,  "could  you  bear  to  have  this  fearful 
thing?" 

"I  think  the  colouring  is  lovely,"  said  Ursula. 

"So  do  I,"  said  Gudrun.  "But  could  you  bear  to 
have  it  swinging  to  your  boat?  Don't  you  want  to  destroy  it 
at  once?" 

"Oh  no,"  said  Ursula.      "I  don't  want  to  destroy  it." 

"Well,  do  you  mind  having  it  instead  of  the  crabs?  Are 
you  sure  you  don't  mind?" 

Gudrun  came  forward  to  exchange  lanterns. 

"No,"  said  Ursula,  yielding  up  the  crabs  and  receiving 
the  cuttlefish. 

Yet  she  could  not  help  feeling  rather  resentful  at  the  way 
in  which  Gudrun  and  Gerald  should  assume  a  right  over  her, 
a  precedence. 

"Come  then,"  said  Birkin.      "I'll  put  them  on  the  boats." 

He  and  Ursula  were  moving  away  to  the  big  boat. 

"I  suppose  you'll  row  me  back,  Rupert,"  said  Gerald, 
out  of  the  pale  shadow  of  the  evening. 

"Won't  you  go  with  Gudrun  in  the  canoe?"  said  Birkin. 
"It'll  be  more  interesting." 

There  was  a  moment's  pause.  Birkin  and  Ursula  stood 
dimly,  with  their  swinging  lanterns,  by  the  water's  edge. 
The  world  was  all  illusive. 

"Is  that  all  right?"   said  Gudrun  to  him. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  193 

"It'll  suit  me  very  well,"  he  said.  "But  what  about  you, 
and  the  rowing?  I  don't  see  why  you  should  pull  me." 

"Why  not?"  she  said.  "I  can  pull  you  as  well  as  I  could 
pull  Ursula." 

By  her  tone  he  could  tell  she  wanted  to  have  him  in  the 
boat  to  herself,  and  that  she  was  subtly  gratified  that  she 
should  have  power  over  them  both.  He  gave  himself,  in  a 
strange,  electric  submission. 

She  handed  him  the  lanterns,  whilst  she  went  to  fix 
the  cane  at  the  end  of  the  canoe.  He  followed  after  her, 
and  stood  with  the  lanterns  dangling  against  his  white- 
flannelled  thighs,  emphasising  the  shadow  around. 

"Kiss  me  before  we  go,"  came  his  voice  softly  from  out 
of  the  shadow  above. 

She  stopped  her  work  in  real,  momentary  astonishment. 

"But  why?"   she  exclaimed,  in  pure  surprise. 

"Why?"   he  echoed,  ironically. 

And  she  looked  at  him  fixedly  for  some  moments.  Then 
she  leaned  forward  and  kissed  him,  with  a  slow,  luxurious 
kiss,  lingering  on  the  mouth.  And  then  she  took  the  lanterns 
from  him,  while  he  stood  swooning  with  the  perfect  fire  that 
burned  in  all  his  joints. 

They  lifted  the  canoe  into  the  water,  Gudrun  took  her 
place,  and  Gerald  pushed  off. 

"Are  you  sure  you  don't  hurt  your  hand,  doing  that?" 
she  asked,  solicitous.  "Because  I  could  have  done  it  per- 
fectly." 

"I  don't  hurt  myself,"  he  said  in  a  low,  soft  voice,  that 
caressed  her  with  inexpressible  beauty. 

And  she  watched  him  as  he  sat  near  her,  very  near  to 
her,  in  the  stern  of  the  canoe,  his  legs  coming  towards  hers, 
his  feet  touching  hers.  And  she  paddled  softly,  lingeringly, 
longing  for  him  to  say  something  meaningful  to  her.  But 
he  remained  silent. 

"You  like  this,  do  you?"  she  said,  in  a  gentle,  solicitous 
voice. 

He  laughed  shortly. 

"There  is  a  space  between  us,"  he  said,  in  the  same  low, 
unconscious  voice,  as  if  something  were  speaking  out  of  him. 


194  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

And  she  was  as  if  magically  aware  of  their  being  balanced  in 
separation,  in  the  boat.  She  swooned  with  acute  compre- 
hension and  pleasure. 

"But  I'm  very  near,"  she  said  caressively,  gaily. 

"Yet  distant,  distant,"  he  said. 

Again  she  was  silent  with  pleasure,  before  she  answered, 
speaking  with  a  reedy,  thrilled  voice: 

"Yet  we  cannot  very  well  change,  whilst  we  are  on  the 
water."- — She  caressed  him  subtly  and  strangely,  having 
him  completely  at  her  mercy. 

A  dozen  or  more  boats  on  the  lake  swung  their  rosy  and 
moon-like  lanterns  low  on  the  water,  that  reflected  as  from 
a  fire.  In  the  distance,  the  steamer  twanged  and  thrummed 
and  washed  with  her  faintly-splashing  paddles,  trailing  her 
strings  of  coloured  lights,  and  occasionally  lighting  up  the 
whole  scene  luridly  with  an  effusion  of  fireworks,  Roman 
candles  and  sheafs  of  stars  and  other  simple  effects,  illu- 
minating the  surface  of  the  water,  and  showing  the  boats 
creeping  round,  low  down.  Then  the  lovely  darkness  fell 
again,  the  lanterns  and  the  little  threaded  lights  glimmered 
softly,  there  was  a  muffled  knocking  of  oars  and  a  waving 
of  music. 

Gudrun  paddled  almost  imperceptibly.  Gerald  could 
see,  not  far  ahead,  the  rich  blue  and  the  rose  globes  of  Ursula's 
lanterns  swaying  softly  cheek  to  cheek  as  Birkin  rowed,  and 
iridescent,  evanescent  gleams  chasing  in  the  wake.  He  was 
aware,  too,  of  his  own  delicately  coloured  lights  casting 
their  softness  behind  him. 

Gudrun  rested  her  paddle  and  looked  round.  The  canoe 
lifted  with  the  lightest  ebbing  of  the  water.  Gerald's  white 
knees  were  very  near  to  her. 

"Isn't  it  beautiful!"   she  said  softly,  as  if  reverently. 

She  looked  at  him,  as  he  leaned  back  against  the  faint 
crystal  of  the  lantern-light.  She  could  see  his  face,  although 
it  was  a  pure  shadow.  But  it  was  a  piece  of  twilight.  And 
her  breast  was  keen  with  passion  for  him,  he  was  so  beauti- 
ful in  his  male  stillness  and  mystery.  It  was  a  certain  pure 
effluence  of  maleness,  like  an  aroma  from  his  softly,  firmly 
moulded  contours,  a  certain  rich  perfection  of  his  presence, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  195 

that  touched  her  with  an  ecstasy,  a  thrill  of  pure  intoxication. 
She  loved  to  look  at  him.  For  the  present  she  did  not  want 
to  touch  him,  to  know  the  further,  satisfying  substance  of 
his  living  body.  He  was  purely  intangible,  yet  so  near. 
Her  hands  lay  on  the  paddle  like  slumber,  she  only  wanted 
to  see  him,  like  a  crystal  shadow,  to  feel  his  essential  presence. 

"Yes,"  he  said  vaguely.      "It  is  very  beautiful." 

He  was  listening  to  the  faint  near  sounds,  the  dropping  of 
water-drops  from  the  oar-blades,  the  slight  drumming  of  the 
lanterns  behind  him,  as  they  rubbed  against  one  another, 
the  occasional  rustling  of  Gudrun's  full  skirt,  an  alien  land 
noise.  His  mind  was  almost  submerged,  he  was  almost 
transfused,  lapsed  out  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  into  the 
things  about  him.  For  he  always  kept  such  a  keen  attentive- 
ness,  concentrated  and  unyielding  in  himself.  Now  he 
had  let  go,  imperceptibly  he  was  melting  into  oneness  with 
the  whole.  It  was  like  pure,  perfect  sleep,  his  first  great 
sleep  of  life.  He  had  been  so  insistent,  so  guarded,  all  his 
life.      But  here  was  sleep,  and  peace,  and  perfect  lapsing  out. 

"Shall  I  row  to  the  landing-stage?"  asked  Gudrun 
wistfully. 

"Anywhere,"  he  answered.     "Let  it  drift." 

"Tell  me  then,  if  we  are  running  into  anything,"  she  re- 
plied, in  that  very  quiet,  toneless  voice  of  sheer  intimacy. 

"The  lights  will  show,"  he  said. 

So  they  drifted  almost  motionless,  in  silence.  He  wanted 
silence,  pure  and  whole.  But  she  was  uneasy  yet  for  some 
word,  for  some  assurance. 

"Nobody  will  miss  you?"  she  asked,  anxious  for  some 
communication. 

"Miss  me?"  he  echoed.     "No!  Why?" 

"I  wondered  if  anybody  would  be  looking  for  you." 

"Why  should  they  look  for  me?"  And  then  he  remembered 
his  manners.  "But  perhaps  you  want  to  get  back,"  he  said, 
in  a  changed  voice. 

"No,  I  don't  want  to  get  back,"  she  replied.  "No,  I 
assure  you." 

"You're  quite  sure  it's  all  right  for  you?" 

"Perfectly  all  right" 


196  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

And  again  they  were  still.  The  launch  twanged  and 
hooted,  somebody  was  singing.  Then  as  if  the  night  smashed, 
suddenly  there  was  a  great  shout,  a  confusion  of  shouting, 
warring  on  the  water,  then  the  horrid  noise  of  paddles  reversed 
and  churned  violently. 

Gerald  sat  up,  and  Gudrun  looked  at  him  in  fear. 

"Somebody  in  the  water,"  he  said,  angrily,  and  desper- 
ately, looking  keenly  across  the  dusk.      "Can  you  row  up?" 

"Where,  to  the  launch?"  asked  Gudrun,  in  nervous 
panic. 

"Yes." 

"You'll  tell  me  if  I  don't  steer  straight,"  she  said,  in 
nervous  apprehension. 

"You  keep  pretty  level,"  he  said,  and  the  canoe  hastened 
forward. 

The  shouting  and  the  noise  continued,  sounding  horrid 
through  the  dusk,  over  the  surface  of  the  water. 

"Wasn't  this  bound  to  happen?"  said  Gudrun,  with  heavy 
hateful  irony.  But  he  hardly  heard,  and  she  glanced  over 
her  shoulder  to  see  her  way.  The  half-dark  waters  were 
sprinkled  with  lovely  bubbles  of  swaying  lights,  the  launch 
did  not  look  far  off.  She  was  rocking  her  lights  in  the  early 
night.  Gudrun  rowed  as  hard  as  she  could.  But  now  that 
it  was  a  serious  matter,  she  seemed  uncertain  and  clumsy 
in  her  stroke,  it  was  difficult  to  paddle  swiftly.  She  glanced 
at  his  face.  He  was  looking  fixedly  into  the  darkness,  very 
keen  and  alert  and  single  in  himself,  instrumental.  Her 
heart  sank,  she  seemed  to  die  a  death.  "Of  course,"  she 
said  to  herself,  "nobody  will  be  drowned.  Of  course  they 
won't.  It  would  be  too  extravagant  and  sensational." 
But  her  heart  was  cold,  because  of  his  sharp  impersonal 
face.  It  was  as  if  he  belonged  naturally  to  dread  and  catas- 
trophe, as  if  he  were  himself  again. 

Then  there  came  a  child's  voice,  a  girl's  high,  piercing 
shriek: 

"Di— Di— Di— Di— Oh  Di— Oh  Di— Oh  Di!" 

The  blood  ran  cold  in  Gudrun's  veins. 

"It's  Diana,  is  it,"  muttered  Gerald.  "The  young 
monkey,  she'd  have  to  be  up  to  some  of  her  tricks." 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  197 

And  he  glanced  again  at  the  paddle,  the  boat  was  not 
going  quickly  enough  for  him.  It  made  Gudrun  almost 
helpless  at  the  rowing,  this  nervous  stress.  She  kept  up 
with  all  her  might.     Still  the  voices  were  calling  and  answering. 

"Where,  Where?  There  you  are — that's  it.  Which? 
No — No — o — o.  Damn  it  all,  here,  here — "  Boats  were 
hurrying  from  all  directions  to  the  scene,  coloured  lanterns 
could  be  seen  waving  close  to  the  surface  of  the  lake,  reflec- 
tions swaying  after  them  in  uneven  haste.  The  steamer 
hooted  again,  for  some  unknown  reason.  Gudrun's  boat  was 
travelling  quickly,  the  lanterns  were  swinging  behind  Gerald. 

And  then  again  came  the  child's  high,  screaming  voice, 
with  a  note  of  weeping  and  impatience  in  it  now: 

"Di— Oh  Di— Oh  Di— Di— !" 

It  was  a  terrible  sound,  coming  through  the  obscure  air 
of  the  evening. 

"You'd  be  better  if  you  were  in  bed,  Winnie,"  Gerald 
muttered  to  himself. 

He  was  stooping,  unlacing  his  shoes,  pushing  them  off 
with  the  foot.  Then  he  threw  his  soft  hat  into  the  bottom 
of  the  boat. 

"You  can't  go  into  the  water  with  your  hurt  hand,"  said 
Gudrun,  panting,  in  a  low  voice  of  horror. 

"What?— It  won't  hurt." 

He  had  struggled  out  of  his  jacket,  and  had  dropped  it 
between  his  feet.  He  sat  bare-headed,  all  in  white  now. 
He  felt  the  belt  at  his  waist.  They  were  nearing  the  launch, 
which  stood  still  big  above  them,  her  myriad  lamps  making 
lovely  darts,  and  sinuous  running  tongues  of  ugly  red  and 
green  and  yellow  light  on  the  lustrous  dark  water,  under  the 
shadow. 

"Oh  get  her  out!  Oh  Di,  darling!  Oh  get  her  out!  Oh 
Daddy,  Oh  Daddy!"  moaned  the  child's  voice,  in  distraction. 
Somebody  was  in  the  water,  with  a  life  belt.  Two  boats 
paddled  near,  their  lanterns  swinging  ineffectually,  the  boats 
nosing  round. 

"Hi  there— Hockley!— hi  there!" 

"Mr.  Gerald!"  came  the  captain's  terrified  voice.  "Miss 
Diana's  in  the  water." 


198  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Anybody  gone  in  for  her?"   came  Gerald's  sharp  voice. 

"Young  Doctor  Brindell,  sir." 

"Where?" 

"Can't  see  no  signs  of  them,  sir.  Everybody's  looking, 
but  there's  nothing  so  far." 

There  was  a  moment's  ominous  pause. 

"Where  did  she  go  in?" 

"I  think — about  where  that  boat  is,"  came  the  uncertain 
answer,  "that  one  with  red  and  green  lights." 

"Row  there,"  said  Gerald  quietly  to  Gudrun. 

"Get  her  out,  Gerald,  oh  get  her  out,"  the  child's  voice 
was  crying  anxiously.      He  took  no  heed. 

"Lean  back  that  way,"  said  Gerald  to  Gudrun,  as  he  stood 
up  in  the  frail  boat.      "She  won't  upset." 

In  another  moment,  he  had  dropped  clean  down,  soft 
and  plumb,  into  the  water.  Gudrun  was  swaying  violently 
in  her  boat,  the  agitated  water  shook  with  transient  lights, 
she  realised  that  it  was  faintly  moonlight,  and  that  he  was 
gone.  So  it  was  possible  to  be  gone.  A  terrible  sense  of 
fatality  robbed  her  of  all  feeling  and  thought.  So  he  was 
gone  out  of  the  world,  there  was  merely  the  same  world,  and 
absence,  his  absence.  The  night  seemed  large  and  vacuous. 
Lanterns  swayed  here  and  there,  people  were  talking  in  an 
undertone  on  the  launch  and  in  the  boats.  She  could  hear 
Winifred  moaning:  "Oh  do  find  her,  Gerald,  do  find  her,"  and 
someone  trying  to  comfort  the  child.  Gudrun  paddled  aim- 
lessly here  and  there.  The  terrible,  massive,  cold,  bound- 
less surface  of  the  water  terrified  her  beyond  words.  Would 
he  never  come  back?  She  felt  she  must  jump  into  the  water 
too,  to  know  the  horror  also. 

She  started,  hearing  someone  say:  "There  he  is."  She 
saw  the  movement  of  his  swimming,  like  a  water-rat.  And 
she  rowed  involuntarily  to  him.  But  he  was  near  another 
boat,  a  bigger  one.  Still  she  rowed  towards  him.  She  must 
be  very  near.  She  saw  him — he  looked  like  a  seal.  He 
looked  like  a  seal  as  he  took  hold  of  the  side  of  the  boat.  His 
fair  hair  was  washed  down  on  his  round  head,  his  face  seemed 
to  glisten  suavely.      She  could  hear  him  panting. 

Then  he  clambered  into  the  boat.      Oh,  and  the  beauty 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  I9d 

of  the  subjection  of  his  loins,  white  and  dimly  luminous  as 
he  climbed  over  the  side  of  the  boat,  made  her  want  to  die, 
to  die.  The  beauty  of  his  dim  and  luminous  loins  as  he 
climbed  into  the  boat,  his  back  rounded  and  soft — ah,  this 
was  too  much  for  her,  too  final  a  vision.  She  knew  it,  and 
it  was  fatal.  The  terrible  hopelessness  of  fate,  and  of  beauty, 
such  beauty ! 

He  was  not  like  a  man  to  her,  he  was  an  incarnation,  a 
great  phase  of  life.  She  saw  him  press  the  water  out  of  his 
face,  and  look  at  the  bandage  on  his  hand.  And  she  knew 
it  was  all  no  good,  and  that  she  would  never  go  beyond  him, 
he  was  the  final  approximation  of  life  to  her. 

"Put  the  lights  out,  we  shall  see  better,"  came  his  voice, 
sudden  and  mechanical  and  belonging  to  the  world  of  man. 
She  could  scarcely  believe  there  was  a  world  of  man.  She 
leaned  round  and  blew  out  her  lanterns.  They  were  difficult 
to  blow  out.  Everywhere  the  lights  were  gone  save  the 
coloured  points  on  the  sides  of  the  launch.  The  bluey-grey, 
early  night  spread  level  around,  the  moon  was  overhead, 
there  were  shadows  of  boats  here  and  there. 

Again  there  was  a  splash,  and  he  was  gone  under.  Gudrun 
sat,  sick  at  heart,  frightened  of  the  great,  level  surface  of  the 
water,  so  heavy  and  deadly.  She  was  so  alone,  with  the  level, 
unliving  field  of  the  water  stretching  beneath  her.  It  was 
not  a  good  isolation,  it  was  a  terrible,  cold  separation  of 
suspense.  She  was  suspended  upon  the  surface  of  the  in- 
sidious reality  until  such  time  as  she  also  should  disappear 
beneath  it. 

Then  she  knew,  by  a  stirring  of  voices,  that  he  had  climbed 
out  again,  into  a  boat.  She  sat  wanting  connection  with  him. 
Strenuously  she  claimed  her  connection  with  him,  across  the 
invisible  space  of  the  water.  But  round  her  heart  was  an 
isolation  unbearable,  through  which  nothing  would  penetrate. 

"Take  the  launch  in.  It's  no  use  keeping  her  there. 
Get  lines  for  the  dragging,"  came  the  decisive,  instrumental 
voice,  that  was  full  of  the  sound  of  the  world. 

The  launch  began  gradually  to  beat  the  waters. 

"Gerald!  Gerald!"  came  the  wild  crying  voice  of  Wini- 
fred.     He  did  not  answer.      Slowly  the  launch  drifted  round 


200  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

in  a  pathetic,  clumsy  circle,  and  slunk  away  to  the  land, 
retreating  into  the  dimness.  The  wash  of  her  paddles  grew 
duller.  Gudrun  rocked  in  her  light  boat,  and  dipped  the 
paddle  automatically  to  steady  herself. 

"Gudrun?"  called  Ursula's  voice. 

"Ursula!" 

The  boats  of  the  two  sisters  pulled  together. 

"Where  is  Gerald?"   said  Gudrun. 

"He's  dived  again,"  said  Ursula  plaintively.  "And  I 
know  he  ought  not,  with  his  hurt  hand  and  everything." 

"I'll  take  him  in  home  this  time,"  said  Birkin. 

The  boats  swayed  again  from  the  wash  of  steamer. 
Gudrun  and  Ursula  kept  a  look-out  for  Gerald. 

"There  he  is!"  cried  Ursula,  who  had  the  sharpest  eyes. 
He  had  not  been  long  under.  Birkin  pulled  towards  him, 
Gudrun  following.  He  swam  slowly,  and  caught  hold  of 
the  boat  with  his  wounded  hand.  It  slipped,  and  he  sank 
back. 

"Why  don't  you  help  him?"   cried  Ursula  sharply. 

He  came  again,  and  Birkin  leaned  to  help  him  in  to  the 
boat.  Gudrun  again  watched  Gerald  climb  out  of  the  water, 
but  this  time  slowly,  heavily,  with  the  blind  clambering 
motions  of  an  amphibious  beast,  clumsy.  Again  the  moon 
shone  with  faint  luminosity  on  his  white  wet  figure,  on  the 
stooping  back  and  the  rounded  loins.  But  it  looked  defeated 
now,  his  body,  it  clambered  and  fell  with  slow  clumsiness. 
He  was  breathing  hoarsely  too,  like  an  animal  that  is  suffering. 
He  sat  slack  and  motionless  in  the  boat,  his  head  blunt  and 
blind  like  a  seal's,  his  whole  appearance  inhuman,  unknowing. 
Gudrun  shuddered  as  she  mechanically  followed  his  boat. 
Birkin  rowed  without  speaking  to  the  landing-stage. 

"Where  are  you  going?"  Gerald  asked  suddenly,  as  if 
just  waking  up. 

"Home,"  said  Birkin. 

"Oh  no!"  said  Gerald  imperiously.  "We  can't  go  home 
while  they're  in  the  water.  Turn  back  again,  I'm  going  to 
find  them."  The  women  were  frightened,  his  voice  was  so 
imperative  and  dangerous,  almost  mad,  not  to  be  opposed. 

"No,"  said  Birkin.      "You  can't."      There  was  a  strange 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  201 

fluid  compulsion  in  his  voice.  Gerald  was  silent  in  a  battle 
of  wills.  It  was  as  if  he  would  kill  the  other  man.  But 
Birkin  rowed  evenly  and  unswerving,  with  an  inhuman 
inevitability. 

"Why  should  you  interfere?"   said  Gerald,  in  hate. 

Birkin  did  not  answer.  He  rowed  towards  the  land. 
And  Gerald  sat  mute,  like  a  dumb  beast,  panting,  his  teeth 
chattering,  his  arms  inert,  his  head  like  a  seal's  head. 

They  came  to  the  landing-stage.  Wet  and  naked-looking, 
Gerald  climbed  up  the  few  steps.  There  stood  his  father, 
in  the  night. 

"Father!"   he  said. 

"Yes,  my  boy? — Go  home  and  get  those  things  off." 

"We  shan't  save  them,  father,"  said  Gerald. 

"There's  hope  yet,  my  boy." 

"I'm  afraid  not.  There's  no  knowing  where  they  are. 
You  can't  find  them.     And  there's  a  current,  as  cold  as  hell." 

"We'll  let  the  water  out,"  said  the  father.  "Go  home 
you  and  look  to  yourself.  See  that  he's  looked  after,  Rupert," 
he  added  in  a  neutral  voice. 

"Well,  father,  I'm  sorry.  I'm  sorry.  I'm  afraid  it's 
my  fault.  But  it  can't  be  helped;  I've  done  what  I  could 
for  the  moment.  I  could  go  on  diving,  of  course — not  much, 
though — and  not  much  use — " 

He  moved  away  barefoot,  on  the  planks  of  the  platform. 
Then  he  trod  on  something  sharp. 

"Of  course,  you've  got  no  shoes  on,"  said  Birkin. 

"His  shoes  are  here!"  cried  Gudrun  from  below.  She  was 
making  fast  her  boat. 

Gerald  waited  for  them  to  be  brought  to  him.  Gudrun 
came  with  them.     He  pulled  them  on  his  feet. 

"If  you  once  die,"  he  said,  "then  when  it's  over,  it's 
finished.  Why  come  to  life  again?  There's  room  under  that 
water  there  for  thousands." 

"Two  is  enough,"  she  said  murmuring. 

He  dragged  on  his  second  shoe.  He  was  shivering  violently, 
and  his  jaw  shook  as  he  spoke. 

"That's  true,"  he  said,  "maybe.  But  it's  curious  how 
much  room  there  seems,  a  whole  universe  under  there;    and 


202  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

as  cold  as  hell,  you're  as  helpless  as  if  your  head  was  cut  off." 
He  could  scarcely  speak,  he  shook  so  violently.  "There's 
one  thing  about  our  family,  you  know,"  he  continued. 
"Once  anything  goes  wrong,  it  can  never  be  put  right  again 
— not  with  us.  I've  noticed  it  all  my  life — you  can't  put 
a  thing  right,  once  it  has  gone  wrong." 

They  were  walking  across  the  high-road  to  the  house. 

"And  do  you  know,  when  you  are  down  there,  it  is  so 
cold,  actually,  and  so  endless,  so  different  really  from  what 
it  is  on  top,  so  endless — you  wonder  how  it  is  so  many  are 
alive,  why  we're  up  here — Are  you  going?  I  shall  see  you 
again,  shan't  I?  Goodnight,  and  thank  you.  Thank  you 
very  much." 

The  two  girls  waited  a  while,  to  see  if  there  were  any  hope. 
The  moon  shone  clearly  overhead,  with  almost  impertinent 
brightness,  the  small  dark  boats  clustered  on  the  water, 
there  were  voices  and  subdued  shouts.  But  it  was  all  to  no 
purpose.      Gudrun  went  home  when  Birkin  returned. 

He  was  commissioned  to  open  the  sluice  that  let  out  the 
water  from  the  lake,  which  was  pierced  at  one  end,  near  the 
high-road,  thus  serving  as  a  reservoir  to  supply  with  water 
the  distant  mines,  in  case  of  necessity.  "Come  with  me," 
he  said  to  Ursula,  "and  then  I  will  walk  home  with  you, 
when  I've  done  this." 

He  called  at  the  water -keeper's  cottage  and  took  the  key 
of  the  sluice.  They  went  through  a  little  gate  from  the 
high-road,  to  the  head  of  the  water,  where  was  a  great  stone 
basin  which  received  the  overflow,  and  a  flight  of  stone  steps 
descended  into  the  depths  of  the  water  itself.  At  the  head 
of  the  steps  was  the  lock  of  the  sluice-gate. 

The  night  was  silver-grey  and  perfect,  save  for  the  scat- 
tered restless  sound  of  voices.  The  grey  sheen  of  the  moon- 
light caught  the  stretch  of  water,  dark  boats  plashed  and 
moved.  But  Ursula's  mind  ceased  to  be  receptive,  everything 
was  unimportant  and  unreal. 

Birkin  fixed  the  iron  handle  of  the  sluice,  and  turned  it 
with  a  wrench.  The  cogs  began  slowly  to  rise.  He  turned 
and  turned,  like  a  slave,  his  white  figure  become  distinct. 
Ursula  looked  away.      She  could  not  bear  to  see  him  winding 


WOMEN  EN  LOVE  203 

heavily  and  laboriously,  bending  and  rising  mechanically 
like  a  slave,  turning  the  handle. 

Then,  a  real  shock  to  her,  there  came  a  loud  splashing  of 
water  from  out  of  the  dark,  tree-filled  hollow  beyond  the  road, 
a  splashing  that  deepened  rapidly  to  a  harsh  roar,  and  then 
became  a  heavy,  booming  noise  of  a  great  body  of  water 
falling  solidly  all  the  time.  It  occupied  the  whole  of  the  night, 
this  great  steady  booming  of  water,  everything  was  drowned 
within  it,  drowned  and  lost.  Ursula  seemed  to  have  to 
struggle  for  her  life.  She  put  her  hands  over  her  ears,  and 
looked  at  the  high  bland  moon. 

"Can't  we  go  now?"  she  cried  to  Birkin,  who  was  watch- 
ing the  water  on  the  steps,  to  see  if  it  would  get  any  lower. 
It  seemed  to  fascinate  him.      He  looked  at  her  and  nodded. 

The  little  dark  boats  had  moved  nearer,  people  were 
crowding  curiously  along  the  hedge  by  the  high-road,  to 
see  what  was  to  be  seen.  Birkin  and  Ursula  went  to  the 
cottage  with  the  key,  then  turned  their  backs  on  the  lake. 
She  was  in  great  haste.  She  could  not  bear  the  terrible 
crushing  boom  of  the  escaping  water. 

"Do  you  think  they  are  dead?"  she  cried  in  a  high  voice, 
to  make  herself  heard. 

"Yes,"  he  replied. 

"Isn't  it  horrible!" 

He  paid  no  heed.  They  walked  up  the  hill,  further  and 
further  away  from  the  noise. 

"Do  you  mind  very  much?"  she  asked  him. 

"I  don't  mind  about  the  dead,"  he  said,  "once  they  are 
dead.  The  worst  of  it  is,  they  cling  on  to  the  living,  and 
won't  let  go." 

She  pondered  for  a  time. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "The  fact  of  death  doesn't  really  seem 
to  matter  much,  does  it?" 

"No,"  he  said.  "What  does  it  matter  if  Diana  Crich 
is  alive  or  dead?" 

"Doesn't  it?"  she  said,  shocked. 

"No,  why  should  it?  Better  she  were  dead — she'll  be 
much  more  real.  She'll  be  positive  in  death.  In  life  she 
was  a  fretting,  negated  thing." 


204  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"You  are  rather  horrible,"  murmured  Ursula. 

"No!  I'd  rather  Diana  Crich  were  dead.  Her  living, 
somehow,  was  all  wrong.  As  for  the  young  man,  poor  devil — 
he'll  find  his  way  out  quickly  instead  of  slowly.  Death  is 
all  right — nothing  better." 

"Yet  you  don't  want  to  die,"  she  challenged  him. 

He  was  silent  for  a  time.  Then  he  said,  in  a  voice  that 
was  frightening  to  her  in  its  change: 

"I  should  like  to  be  through  with  it — I  should  like  to  be 
through  with  the  death  process." 

"And  aren't  you?"   asked  Ursula  nervously. 

They  walked  on  for  some  way  in  silence,  under  the  trees. 
Then  he  said,  slowly,  as  if  afraid: 

"There  is  life  which  belongs  to  death,  and  there  is  life 
which  isn't  death.  One  is  tired  of  the  life  that  belongs  to 
death — our  kind  of  life.  But  whether  it  is  finished,  God 
knows.  I  want  love  that  is  like  sleep,  like  being  born  again, 
vulnerable  as  a  baby  that  just  comes  into  the  world." 

Ursula  listened,  half  attentive,  half  avoiding  what  he 
said.  She  seemed  to  catch  the  drift  of  his  statement,  and 
then  she  drew  away.  She  wanted  to  hear,  but  she  did  not 
want  to  be  implicated.  She  was  reluctant  to  yield  there, 
where  he  wanted  her,  to  yield  as  it  were,  her  very  identity. 

"Why  should  love  be  like  sleep?"  she  asked  sadly. 

"I  don't  know.  So  that  it  is  like  death — I  do  want  to  die 
from  this  life — and  yet  it  is  more  than  life  itself.  One  is 
delivered  over  like  a  naked  infant  from  the  womb,  all  the  old 
defences  and  the  old  body  gone,  and  new  air  around  one, 
that  has  never  been  breathed  before." 

She  listened,  making  out  what  he  said.  She  knew,  as 
well  as  he  knew,  that  words  themselves  do  not  convey 
meaning,  that  they  are  but  a  gesture  we  make,  a  dumb  show 
like  any  other.  And  she  seemed  to  feel  his  gesture  through 
her  blood,  and  she  drew  back,  even  though  her  desire  sent 
her  forward. 

"But,"  she  said  gravely,  "didn't  you  say  you  wanted 
something  that  was  not  love — something  beyond  love?" 

He  turned  in  confusion.  There  was  always  confusion 
in  speech.      Yet  it  must  be  spoken.      Whichever  way  one 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  205 

moved,  if  one  were  to  move  forwards,  one  must  break  a  way 
through.  And  to  know,  to  give  utterance,  was  to  break 
a  way  through  the  walls  of  the  prison  as  the  infant  in  labour 
strives  through  the  walls  of  the  womb.  There  is  no  new 
movement  now,  without  the  breaking  through  of  the 
old  body,  deliberately,  in  knowledge,  in  the  struggle  to  get 
out. 

"I  don't  want  love,"  he  said.  "I  don't  want  to  know  you. 
I  want  to  be  gone  out  of  myself,  and  you  to  be  lost  to  your- 
self, so  we  are  found  different.-^One  shouldn't  talk  when  one 
is  tired  and  wretched. — One  Hamletises,  and  it  seems  a  he. — 
Only  believe  me  when  I  show  you  a  bit  of  healthy  pride  and 
insouciance.     I  hate  myself  serious." 

"Why  shouldn't  you  be  serious?"   she  said. 

He  thought  for  a  minute,  then  he  said,  sulkily: 

"I  don't  know."  Then  they  walked  on  in  silence,  at 
outs.     He  was  vague  and  lost. 

"Isn't  it  strange,"  she  said,  suddenly  putting  her  hand 
on  his  arm,  with  a  loving  impulse,  "how  we  always  talk  like 
this!  I  suppose  we  do  love  each  other,  in  some  way." 

"Oh  yes,"  he  said;   "too  much." 

She  laughed  almost  gaily. 

"You'd  have  to  have  it  your  own  way,  wouldn't  you?" 
she  teased.     "You  could  never  take  it  on  trust." 

He  changed,  laughed  softly,  and  turned  and  took  her  in  his 
arms,  in  the  middle  of  the  road. 

"Yes,"  he  said  softly. 

And  he  kissed  her  face  and  brow,  slowly,  gently,  with  a 
sort  of  delicate  happiness  which  surprised  her  extremely, 
and  to  which  she  could  not  respond.  They  were  soft,  blind 
kisses,  perfect  in  their  stillness.  Yet  she  held  back  from  them. 
It  was  like  strange  moths,  very  soft  and  silent,  settling  on  her 
from  the  darkness  of  her  soul.  She  was  uneasy.  She  drew 
away. 

"Isn't  somebody  coming?"   she  said. 

So  they  looked  down  the  dark  road,  then  set  off  again 
walking  towards  Beldover.  Then  suddenly,  to  show  him 
she  was  no  shallow  prude,  she  stopped  and  held  him  tight, 
hard  against  her,  and  covered  his  face  with  hard,  fierce  kisses 


206  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

of  passion.  In  spite  of  his  otherness,  the  old  blood  beat  up 
in  him. 

"Not  this,  not  this,"  he  whimpered  to  himself,  as  the  first 
perfect  mood  of  softness  and  sleep-loveiness  ebbed  back 
away  from  the  rushing  of  passion  that  came  up  to  his  limbs 
and  over  his  face  as  she  drew  him.  And  soon  he  was  a  perfect 
hard  flame  of  passionate  desire  for  her.  Yet  in  the  small 
core  of  the  flame  was  an  unyielding  anguish  of  another  thing. 
But  this  also  was  lost;  he  only  wanted  her,  with  an  extreme 
desire  that  seemed  inevitable  as  death,  beyond  question. 

Then,  satisfied  and  shattered,  fulfilled  and  destroyed, 
he  went  home  away  from  her,  drifting  vaguely  through  the 
darkness,  lapsed  into  the  old  fire  of  burning  passion.  Far 
away,  far  away,  there  seemed  to  be  a  small  lament  in  the 
darkness.  But  what  did  it  matter?  What  did  it  matter, 
what  did  anything  matter  save  this  ultimate  and  triumphant 
experience  of  physical  passion,  that  had  blazed  up  anew 
like  a  new  spell  of  life.  "I  was  becoming  quite  dead-alive, 
nothing  but  a  word-bag,"  he  said  in  triumph,  scorning  his 
other  self.  Yet  somewhere  far  off  and  small,  the  other 
hovered. 

The  men  were  still  dragging  the  lake  when  he  got  back. 
He  stood  on  the  bank  and  heard  Gerald's  voice.  The  water 
was  still  booming  in  the  night,  the  moon  was  fair,  the  hills 
beyond  were  elusive.  The  lake  was  sinking.  There  came 
the  raw  smell  of  the  banks,  in  the  night  air. 

Up  at  Shortlands  there  were  lights  in  the  windows,  as  if 
nobody  had  gone  to  bed.  On  the  landing  stage  was  the  old 
doctor,  the  father  of  the  young  man  who  was  lost.  He 
stood  quite  silent,  waiting.  Birkin  also  stood  and  watched, 
Gerald  came  up  in  a  boat. 

"You  still  here,  Rupert?"  he  said.  "We  can't  get  them. 
The  bottom  slopes,  you  know,  very  steep.  The  water  lies 
between  two  very  sharp  slopes,  with  little  branch  valleys, 
and  God  knows  where  the  drift  will  take  you.  It  isn't  as 
if  it  was  a  level  bottom.  You  never  know  where  you  are, 
with  the  dragging." 

"Is  there  any  need  for  you  to  be  working?"  said  Birkin. 
"Wouldn't  it  be  much  better  if  you  went  to  bed?" 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  207 

"To  bed!  Good  God,  do  you  think  I  should  sleep?  We'll 
find  'em,  before  I  go  away  from  here." 

"But  the  men  would  find  them  just  the  same  without 
you — why  should  you  insist?" 

Gerald  looked  up  at  him.  Then  he  put  his  hand  affection- 
ately on  Birkin's  shoulder,  saying: 

"Don't  you  bother  about  me,  Rupert.  If  there's  any- 
body's health  to  think  about,  it's  yours,  not  mine.  How  do 
you  feel  yourself?" 

"Very  well.  But  you,  you  spoil  your  own  chance  of  life 
— you  waste  your  best  self." 

Gerald  was  silent  for  a  moment.     Then  he  said : 

"Waste  it?  What  else  is  there  to  do  with  it?" 

"But  leave  this,  won't  you?  You  force  yourself  into  hor- 
rors, and  put  a  mill-stone  of  beastly  memories  round  your 
neck.     Come  away  now." 

"A  mill-stone  of  beastly  memories!"  Gerald  repeated. 
Then  he  put  his  hand  again  affectionately  on  Birkin's  shoulder. 
"God,  you've  got  such  a  telling  way  of  putting  things,  Rupert, 
you  have." 

Birkin's  heart  sank.  He  was  irritated  and  weary  of  having 
a  telling  way  of  putting  things. 

"Won't  you  leave  it?  Come  over  to  my  place" — he 
urged  as  one  urges  a  drunken  man. 

"No,"  said  Gerald,  coaxingly,  his  arm  across  the  other 
man's  shoulder.  "Thanks  very  much,  Rupert — I  shall  be 
glad  to  come  tomorrow,  if  that'll  do.  You  understand, 
don't  you?  I  want  to  see  this  job  through.  But  I'll  come 
tomorrow,  right  enough.  Oh,  I'd  rather  come  and  have  a 
chat  with  you  than — than  do  anything  else,  I  verily  believe. 
Yes,  I  would.  You  mean  a  lot  to  me,  Rupert,  more  than  you 
know." 

"What  do  I  mean,  more  than  I  know?"  asked  Birkin 
irritably.  He  was  acutely  aware  of  Gerald's  hand  on  his 
shoulder.  And  he  did  not  want  this  altercation.  He  wanted 
the  other  man  to  come  out  of  the  ugly  misery. 

"I'll  tell  you  another  time,"  said  Gerald  coaxingly. 

"Come  along  with  me  now — I  want  you  to  come,"  said 
Birkin. 


208  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

There  was  a  pause,  intense  and  real.  Birkin  wondered 
why  his  own  heart  beat  so  heavily. — Then  Gerald's  fingers 
gripped  hard  and  communicative  into  Birkin's  shoulder, 
as  he  said: 

"No,  I'll  see  this  job  through,  Rupert.  Thank  you — I 
know  what  you  mean.  We're  all  right,  you  know,  you  and 
me." 

"I  may  be  all  right,  but  I'm  sure  you're  not,  mucking 
about  here,"  said  Birkin.     And  he  went  away. 

The  bodies  of  the  dead  were  not  recovered  till  towards 
dawn.  Diana  had  her  arms  tight  round  the  neck  of  the  young 
man,  choking  him. 

"She  killed  him,"  said  Gerald. 

The  moon  sloped  down  the  sky  and  sank  at  last.  The 
lake  was  sunk  to  quarter  size,  it  had  horrible  raw  banks  of 
clay,  that  smelled  of  raw  rottenish  water.  Dawn  roused 
faintly  behind  the  eastern  hill.  The  water  still  boomed 
through  the  sluice. 

As  the  birds  were  whistling  for  the  first  morning,  and  the 
hills  at  the  back  of  the  desolate  lake  stood  radiant  with  the 
new  mists,  there  was  a  straggling  procession  up  to  Shortlands, 
men  bearing  the  bodies  on  a  stretcher,  Gerald  going  beside 
them,  the  two  grey-bearded  fathers  following  in  silence. 
Indoors  the  family  was  all  sitting  up,  waiting.  Somebody 
must  go  to  tell  the  mother,  in  her  room.  The  doctor  in  secret 
struggled  to  bring  back  his  son,  till  he  himself  was  exhausted. 

Over  all  the  outlying  district  was  a  hush  of  dreadful  excite- 
ment on  that  Sunday  morning.  The  colliery  people  felt  as 
if  this  catastrophe  had  happened  directly  to  themselves,  in- 
deed they  were  more  shocked  and  frightened  than  if  their 
own  men  had  been  killed.  Such  a  tragedy  in  Shortlands, 
the  high  home  of  the  district!  One  of  the  young  mistresses, 
persisting  in  dancing  on  the  cabin  roof  of  the  launch,  wilful 
young  madam,  drowned  in  the  midst  of  the  festival,  with  the 
young  doctor!  Everywhere  on  the  Sunday  morning,  the  col- 
liers wandered  about,  discussing  the  calamity.  At  all  the 
Sunday  dinners  of  the  people,  there  seemed  a  strange  presence. 
It  was  as  if  the  angel  of  death  were  very  near,  there  was  a 
sense  of  the  supernatural  in  the  air.      The  men  had  excited, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  209 

startled  faces,  the  women  looked  solemn,  some  of  them  had 
been  crying.  The  children  enjoyed  the  excitement  at  first. 
There  was  an  intensity  in  the  air,  almost  magical.  Did  all 
enjoy  it?   Did  all  enjoy  the  thrill? 

Gudrun  had  wild  ideas  of  rushing  to  comfort  Gerald. 
She  was  thinking  all  the  time  of  the  perfect  comforting, 
reassuring  thing  to  say  to  him.  She  was  shocked  and 
frightened,  but  she  put  that  away,  thinking  of  how  she  should 
deport  herself  with  Gerald:  act  her  part.  That  was  the 
real  thrill :   how  she  should  act  her  part. 

Ursula  was  deeply  and  passionately  in  love  with  Birkin, 
and  she  was  capable  of  nothing.  She  was  perfectly  callous 
about  all  the  talk  of  the  accident,  but  her  estranged  air 
looked  like  trouble.  She  merely  sat  by  herself,  whenever 
she  could,  and  longed  to  see  him  again.  She  wanted  him 
to  come  to  the  house, — she  would  not  have  it  otherwise, 
he  must  come  at  once.  She  was  waiting  for  him.  She 
stayed  indoors  all  day,  waiting  for  him  to  knock  at  the  door. 
Every  minute,  she  glanced  automatically  at  the  window. 
He  would  be  there. 


CHAPTER  XV 

AS  THE   day   wore  on,   the  life-blood   seemed   to  ebb 
away  from  Ursula,  and  with  the  emptiness  a  heavy 
despair  gathered.      Her  passion  seemed  to  bleed  to 
death,  and  there  was  nothing.      She  sat  suspended  in  a  state 
of  complete  nullity,  harder  to  bear  than  death. 

"Unless  something  happens,"  she  said  to  herself,  in  the 
perfect  lucidity  of  final  suffering,  "I  shall  die.  I  am  at  the 
end  of  my  line  of  life." 

She  sat  crushed  and  obliterated  in  a  darkness  that  was 
the  border  of  death.  She  realised  how  all  her  life  she  had 
been  drawing  nearer  and  nearer  to  this  brink,  where  there 
was  no  beyond,  from  which  one  had  to  leap  like  Sappho 
into  the  unknown.  The  knowledge  of  the  imminence  of  death 
was  like  a  drug.  Darkly,  without  thinking  at  all,  she  knew 
that  she  was  near  to  death.  She  had  travelled  all  her  life 
along  the  line  of  fulfilment,  and  it  was  nearly  concluded. 
She  knew  all  she  had  to  know,  she  had  experienced  all  she  had 
to  experience,  she  was  fulfilled  in  a  kind  of  bitter  ripeness, 
there  remained  only  to  fall  from  the  tree  into  death.  And 
one  must  fulfil  one's  development  to  the  end,  must  carry  the 
adventure  to  its  conclusion.  And  the  next  step  was  over 
the  border  into  death.  So  it  was  then!  There  was  a  certain 
peace  in  the  knowledge. 

After  all,  when  one  was  fulfilled,  one  was  happiest  in  fal- 
ling into  death,  as  a  bitter  fruit  plunges  in  its  ripeness  down- 
wards. Death  is  a  great  consummation,  a  consummating 
experience.  It  is  a  development  from  life.  That  we  know, 
while  we  are  yet  living.  What  then  need  we  think  for  fur- 
ther? One  can  never  see  beyond  the  consummation.  It  is 
enough  that  death  is  a  great  and  conclusive  experience. 
Why  should  we  ask  what  comes  after  the  experience,  when 
the  experience  is  still  unknown  to  us?  Let  us  die,  since  the 
great  experience  is  the  one  that  follows  now  upon  all  the 
rest,  death,  which  is  the  next  great  crisis  in  front  of  which  we 

210 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  211 

have  arrived.  If  we  wait,  if  we  baulk  the  issue,  we  do  not 
hang  about  the  gates  in  undignified  uneasiness.  There  it 
is,  in  front  of  us,  as  in  front  of  Sappho,  the  illimitable  space. 
Thereinto  goes  the  journey.  Have  we  not  the  courage  to 
go  on  with  our  journey,  must  we  cry  "I  daren't."  On  ahead 
we  will  go,  into  death,  and  whatever  death  may  mean.  If 
a  man  can  see  the  next  step  to  be  taken,  why  should  he  fear 
the  next  but  one?  Why  ask  about  the  next  but  one?  Of  the 
next  step  we  are  certain.     It  is  the  step  into  death. 

"I  shall  die — I  shall  quickly  die,"  said  Ursula  to  herself, 
clear  as  if  in  a  trance,  clear,  calm,  and  certain  beyond  human 
certainty.  But  somewhere  behind,  in  the  twilight,  there 
was  a  bitter  weeping  and  a  hopelessness.  That  must  not  be 
attended  to.  One  must  go  where  the  unfaltering  spirit  goes, 
there  must  be  no  baulking  the  issue,  because  of  fear.  No 
baulking  the  issue,  no  listening  to  the  lesser  voices.  If  the 
deepest  desire  be  now,  to  go  on  into  the  unknown  of  death, 
shall  one  forfeit  the  deepest  truth  for  one  more  shallow? 

"Then  let  it  end,"  she  said  to  herself.  It  was  a  decision. 
It  was  not  a  question  of  taking  one's  life — she  would  never 
kill  herself,  that  was  repulsive  and  violent.  It  was  a  question 
of  knowing  the  next  step.  And  the  next  step  led  into  the 
space  of  death.     Did  it? — or  was  there ? 

Her  thoughts  drifted  into  unconsciousness,  she  sat  as  if 
asleep  beside  the  fire.  And  then  the  thought  came  back. 
The  space  of  death!  Could  she  give  herself  to  it?  Ah  yes — 
it  was  a  sleep.  She  had  had  enough.  So  long  she  had  held 
out  and  resisted.  Now  was  the  time  to  relinquish,  not  to 
resist  any  more. 

In  a  kind  of  spiritual  trance,  she  yielded,  she  gave  way, 
and  all  was  dark.  She  could  feel,  within  the  darkness,  the 
terrible  assertion  of  her  body,  the  unutterable  anguish  of 
dissolution,  the  only  anguish  that  is  too  much,  the  far-off, 
awful  nausea  of  dissolution  set  in  within  the  body. 

"Does  the  body  correspond  so  immediately  with  the 
spirit?"  she  asked  herself.  And  she  knew,  with  the  clarity 
of  ultimate  knowledge,  that  the  body  is  only  one  of  the 
manifestations  of  the  spirit,  the  dissolution  of  the  integral 
spirit  is  the  dissolution  of  the  physical  body  as  well.      Unless 


212  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

I  set  my  will,  unless  I  absolve  myself  from  the  rhythm  of 
life,  fix  myself  and  remain  static,  cut  off  from  living,  absolved 
within  my  own  will.  But  better  die  than  live  mechanically 
a  life  that  is  a  repetition  of  repetitions.  To  die  is  to  move 
on  with  the  invisible.  To  die  is  also  a  joy,  a  joy  of  sub- 
mitting to  that  which  is  greater  than  the  known,  namely, 
the  pure  unknown.  That  is  a  joy.  But  to  live  mechanised 
and  cut  off  within  the  motion  of  the  will  to  live  as  an  entity 
absolved  from  the  unknown,  that  is  shameful  and  ignominious. 
There  is  no  ignominy  in  death.  There  is  complete  ignominy 
in  an  unreplenished,  mechanised  life.  Life  indeed  may  be 
ignominious,  shameful  to  the  soul.  But  death  is  never  a 
shame.  Death  itself,  like  the  illimitable  space,  is  beyond 
our  sullying. 

Tomorrow  was  Monday.  Monday,  the  beginning  of 
another  school- week!  Another  shameful,  barren  school-week, 
mere  routine  and  mechanical  activity.  Was  not  the  adventure 
of  death  infinitely  preferable?  Was  not  death  infinitely  more 
lovely  and  noble  than  such  a  life?  A  life  of  barren  routine, 
without  inner  meaning,  without  any  real  significance.  How 
sordid  life  was,  how  it  was  a  terrible  shame  to  the  soul,  to 
live  now!  How  much  cleaner  and  more  dignified  to  be  dead! 
One  could  not  bear  any  more  of  this  shame  of  sordid  routine 
and  mechanical  nullity.  One  might  come  to  fruit  in  death. 
She  had  had  enough.  For  where  was  life  to  be  found?  No 
flowers  grow  upon  busy  machinery,  there  is  no  sky  to  a  rou- 
tine, there  is  no  space  to  a  rotary  motion.  And  all  life  was 
a  rotary  motion,  mechanised,  cut  off  from  reality.  There 
was  nothing  to  look  for  from  life — it  was  the  same  in  all 
countries  and  all  peoples.  The  only  window  was  death.  One 
could  look  out  on  to  the  great  dark  sky  of  death  with  elation, 
as  one  had  looked  out  of  the  class-room  window  as  a  child, 
and  seen  perfect  freedom  in  the  outside.  Now  one  was  not  a 
child,  and  one  knew  that  the  soul  was  a  prisoner  within  this 
sordid  vast  edifice  of  life,  and  there  was  no  escape,  save  in  death. 

But  what  a  joy!  What  a  gladness  to  think  that  whatever 
humanity  did,  it  could  not  seize  hold  of  the  kingdom  of 
death,  to  nullify  that.  The  sea  they  turned  into  a  murderous 
alley  and  a  soiled  road  of  commerce,  disputed  like  the  dirty 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  213 

land  of  a  city  every  inch  of  it.  The  air  they  claimed  too, 
shared  it  up,  parcelled  it  out  to  certain  owners,  they  tres- 
passed in  the  air  to  fight  for  it.  Everything  was  gone,  walled 
in,  with  spikes  on  top  of  the  walls,  and  one  must  ignomini- 
ously  creep  between  the  spiky  walls  through  a  labyrinth  of  life. 

But  the  great,  dark,  illimitable  kingdom  of  death,  there 
humanity  was  put  to  scorn.  So  much  they  could  do  upon 
earth,  the  multifarious  little  gods  that  they  were.  But  the 
kingdom  of  death  put  them  all  to  scorn,  they  dwindled  into 
their  true  vulgar  silliness  in  face  of  it. 

How  beautiful,  how  grand  and  perfect  death  was,  how 
good  to  look  forward  to.  There  one  would  wash  off  all  the 
lies  and  ignominy  and  dirt  that  had  been  put  upon  one  here, 
a  perfect  bath  of  cleanness  and  glad  refreshment,  and  go 
unknown,  unquestioned,  unabased.  After  all,  one  was  rich, 
if  only  in  the  promise  of  perfect  death.  It  was  a  gladness 
above  all,  that  this  remained  to  look  forward  to,  the  pure 
inhuman  otherness  of  death.  Whatever  life  might  be,  it 
could  not  take  away  death,  the  inhuman  transcendent  death. 
Oh,  let  us  ask  no  question  of  it,  what  it  is  or  is  not.  To  know 
is  human,  and  in  death  we  do  not  know,  we  are  not  human. 
And  the  joy  of  this  compensates  for  all  the  bitterness  of 
knowledge  and  the  sordidness  of  our  humanity.  In  death 
we  shall  not  be  human,  and  we  shall  not  know.  The  promise 
of  this  is  our  heritage,  we  look  forward  like  heirs  to  their 
majority. 

Ursula  sat  quite  still  and  quite  forgotten,  alone  by  the 
fire  in  the  drawing-room.  The  children  were  playing  in  the 
kitchen,  all  the  others  were  gone  to  church.  And  she  was  gone 
into  the  ultimate  darkness  of  her  own  soul. 

She  was  startled  by  hearing  the  bell  ring,  away  in  the 
kitchen,  the  children  came  scudding  along  the  passage  in 
delicious  alarm. 

"Ursula,  there's  somebody." 

"I  know.  Don't  be  silly,"  she  replied.  She  too  was 
startled,  almost  frightened.     She  dared  hardly  go  to  the  door. 

Birkin  stood  on  the  threshold,  his  rain-coat  turned  up 
to  his  ears.  He  had  come  now,  now  she  was  gone  far  away. 
She  was  aware  of  the  rainy  night  behind  him. 


214  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Oh,  is  it  you?"   she  said. 

"I  am  glad  you  are  at  home,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice, 
entering  the  house. 

"They  are  all  gone  to  church." 

He  took  off  his  coat  and  hung  it  up.  The  children  were 
peeping  at  him  round  the  corner. 

"Go  and  get  undressed  now,  Billy  and  Dora,"  said 
Ursula.  "Mother  will  be  back  soon,  and  she'll  be  disappointed 
if  you're  not  in  bed." 

The  children,  in  a  sudden  angelic  mood,  retired  without 
a  word.  Birkin  and  Ursula  went  into  the  drawing-room. 
The  fire  burned  low.  He  looked  at  her  and  wondered  at  the 
luminous  delicacy  of  her  beauty,  and  the  wide  shining  of  her 
eyes.  He  watched  from  a  distance,  with  wonder  in  his 
heart,  she  seemed  transfigured  with  light. 

"What  have  you  been  doing  all  day?"  he  asked  her. 

"Only  sitting  about,"  she  said. 

He  looked  at  her.  There  was  a  change  in  her.  But  she 
was  separate  from  him.  She  remained  apart,  in  a  kind  of 
brightness.  They  both  sat  silent  in  the  soft  light  of  the  lamp. 
He  felt  he  ought  to  go  away  again,  he  ought  not  to  have  come. 
Still  he  did  not  gather  enough  resolution  to  move.  But 
he  was  de  trop,  her  mood  was  absent  and  separate. 

Then  there  came  the  voices  of  the  two  children  calling 
shyly  outside  the  door,  softly,  with  self -excited  timidity: 

"Ursula!    Ursula!" 

She  rose  and  opened  the  door.  On  the  threshold  stood 
the  two  children  in  their  long  nightgowns,  with  wide-eyed, 
angelic  faces.  They  were  being  very  good  for  the  moment, 
playing  the  r6k  perfectly  of  two  obedient  children. 

"Shall  you  take  us  to  bed!"  said  Billy,  in  a  loud  whisper. 

"Why,  you  are  angels  to-night,"  she  said  softly.  "Won't 
you  come  and  say  good-night  to  Mr.  Birkin?" 

The  children  merged  shyly  into  the  room,  on  bare  feet. 
Billy's  face  was  wide  and  grinning,  but  there  was  a  great 
solemnity  of  being  good  in  his  round  blue  eyes.  Dora, 
peeping  from  the  floss  of  her  fair  hair,  hung  back  like  some  tmy 
Dryad,  that  has  no  soul. 

"Will  you  say  good-night  to  me?"    asked  Birkin,  in  a 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  215 

voice  that  was  strangely  soft  and  smooth.  Dora  drifted  away 
at  once,  like  a  leaf  lifted  on  a  breath  of  wind.  But  Billy 
went  softly  forward,  slow  and  willing,  lifting  his  pinched-up 
mouth  implicitly  to  be  kissed.  Ursula  watched  the  full, 
gathered  lips  of  the  man  gently  touch  those  of  the  boy,  so 
gently.  Then  Birkin  lifted  his  fingers  and  touched  the  boy's 
round,  confiding  cheek,  with  a  faint  touch  of  love.  Neither 
spoke.  Billy  seemed  angelic  like  a  cherub  boy,  or  like  an 
acolyte,  Birkin  was  a  tall,  grave  angel  looking  down  to  him. 

"Are  you  going  to  be  kissed?"  Ursula  broke  in,  speaking 
to  the  little  girl.  But  Dora  edged  away  like  a  tiny  Dryad 
that  will  not  be  touched. 

"Won't  you  say  good-night  to  Mr.  Birkin?  Go,  he's 
waiting  for  you,"  said  Ursula.  But  the  girl-child  only  made 
a  little  motion  away  from  him. 

"Silly  Dora,  silly  Dora!"   said  Ursula. 

Birkin  felt  some  mistrust  and  antagonism  in  the  small 
child.     He  could  not  understand  it. 

"Come  then,"  said  Ursula.      "Let  us  go  before  mother 


"Who'll  hear  us  say  our  prayers?"    asked  Billy  anxiously. 

"Whom  you  like." 

"Won't  you?" 

"Yes,  I  will." 

"Ursula?" 

"Well,  Billy?" 

"Is  it  whom  you  like?" 

"That's  it" 

"Well,  what  is  whom?" 

"It's  the  accusative  of  who." 

There  was  a  moment's  comtemplative  silence,  then  the 
confiding: 

"Is  it?" 

Birkin  smiled  to  himself  as  he  sat  by  the  fire.  When 
Ursula  came  down  he  sat  motionless,  with  his  arms  on  his 
knees.  She  saw  him,  how  he  was  motionless  and  ageless, 
like  some  crouching  idol,  some  image  of  a  deathly  religion. 
He  looked  round  at  her,  and  his  face,  very  pale  and  unreal, 
seemed  to  gleam  with  a  whiteness  almost  phosphorescent. 


216  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Don't  you  feel  well?"   she  asked,  in  indefinable  repulsion. 

"I  hadn't  thought  about  it." 

"But  don't  you  know  without  thinking  about  it?" 

He  looked  at  her,  his  eyes  dark  and  swift,  and  he  saw  her 
revulsion.     He  did  not  answer  her  question. 

"Don't  you  know  whether  you  are  unwell  or  not,  without 
thinking  about  it?"   she  persisted. 

"Not  always,"  he  said  coldly. 

"But  don't  you  think  that's  very  wicked?" 

"Wicked?" 

"Yes.  I  think  it's  criminal  to  have  so  little  connection 
with  your  own  body  that  you  don't  even  know  when  you 
are  ill." 

He  looked  at  her  darkly. 

"Yes,"  he  said. 

"Why  don't  you  stay  in  bed  when  you  are  seedy?  You 
look  perfectly  ghastly." 

"Offensively  so?"   he  asked  ironically. 

"Yes,  quite  offensive.     Quite  repelling." 

"Ah!! — Well,  that's  unfortunate." 

"And  it's  raining,  and  it's  a  horrible  night.  Really,  you 
shouldn't  be  forgiven  for  treating  your  body  like  that — you 
ought  to  suffer,  a  man  who  takes  as  little  notice  of  his  body 
as  that." 

" — takes  as  little  notice  of  his  body  as  that,"  he  echoed 
mechanically. 

This  cut  her  short,  and  there  was  silence. 

The  others  came  in  from  church,  and  the  two  had  the  girls 
to  face,  then  the  mother  and  Gudrun,  and  then  the  father 
and  the  boy. 

"Good-evening,"  said  Brangwen,  faintly  surprised. 
"Came  to  see  me,  did  you?" 

"No,"  said  Birkin,  "not  about  anything  in  particular, 
that  is.  '  The  day  was  dismal,  and  I  thought  you  wouldn't 
mind  if  I  called  in." 

"It  has  been  a  depressing  day,"  said  Mrs.  Brangwen 
sympathetically.  At  that  moment  the  voices  of  the  children 
were  heard  calling  from  upstairs:  "Mother!  Mother!"  She 
lifted  her  face  and  answered  mildly  into  the  distance:    "I 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  217 

shall  come  up  to  you  in  a  minute,  Doysie."  Then  to  Birkin: 
"There  is  nothing  fresh  at  Shortlands,  I  suppose? — Ah," 
she  sighed,  "no,  poor  things,  I  should  think  not." 

"You've  been  over  there  to-day,  I  suppose?"  asked  the 
father. 

"Gerald  came  round  to  tea  with  me,  and  I  walked  back 
with  him.  The  house  is  over-excited  and  unwholesome, 
I  thought." 

"I  should  think  they  were  people  who  hadn't  much  re- 
straint,"  said  Gudrun. 

"Or  too  much,"  Birkin  answered. 

"Oh  yes,  I'm  sure,"  said  Gudrun,  almost  vindictively, 
"one  or  the  other." 

"They  all  feel  they  ought  to  behave  in  some  unnatural 
fashion,"  said  Birkin.  "When  people  are  in  grief,  they  would 
do  better  to  cover  their  faces  and  keep  in  retirement,  as  in 
the  old  days." 

"Certainly!"  cried  Gudrun,  flushed  and  inflammable. 
"What  can  be  worse  than  this  public  grief — what  is  more 
horrible,  more  false?  If  grief  is  not  private,  and  hidden, 
what  is?" 

"Exactly,"  he  said.  "I  felt  ashamed  when  I  was  there 
and  they  were  all  going  about  in  a  lugubrious  false  way, 
feeling  they  must  not  be  natural  or  ordinary." 

"Well,"  said  Mrs.  Brangwen,  offended  at  this  criticism, 
"it  isn't  so  easy  to  bear  a  trouble  like  that." 

And  she  went  upstairs  to  the  children. 

He  remained  only  a  few  minutes  longer,  then  took  his 
leave.  When  he  was  gone  Ursula  felt  such  a  poignant  hatred 
of  him,  that  all  her  brain  seemed  turned  into  a  sharp  crystal 
of  fine  hatred.  Her  whole  nature  seemed  sharpened  and 
intensified  into  a  pure  dart  of  hate.  She  could  not  imagine 
what  it  was.  It  merely  took  hold  of  her,  the  most  poignant 
and  ultimate  hatred,  pure  and  clear  and  beyond  thought. 
She  could  not  think  of  it  at  all,  she  was  translated  beyond 
herself.  It  was  like  a  possession.  She  felt  she  was  pos- 
sessed. And  for  several  days  she  went  about  possessed  by 
this  exquisite  force  of  hatred  against  him.  It  surpassed 
anything  she  had  ever  known  before,  it  seemed  to  throw  her 


218  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

out  of  the  world  into  some  terrible  region  where  nothing  of 
her  old  life  held  good.  She  was  quite  lost  and  dazed,  really 
dead  to  her  own  life. 

It  was  so  completely  incomprehensible  and  irrational. 
She  did  not  know  why  she  hated  him,  her  hate  was  quite 
abstract.  She  had  only  realised  with  a  shock  that  stunned 
her,  that  she  was  overcome  by  this  pure  transportation. 
He  was  the  enemy,  fine  as  a  diamond,  and  as  hard  and  jewel- 
like, the  quintessence  of  all  that  was  inimical. 

She  thought  of  his  face,  white  and  purely  wrought,  and 
of  his  eyes  that  had  such  a  dark,  constant  will  of  assertion, 
and  she  touched  her  own  forehead,  to  feel  if  she  were  mad, 
she  was  so  transfigured  in  white  flame  of  essential  hate. 

It  was  not  temporal,  her  hatred,  she  did  not  hate  him 
for  this  or  for  that;  she  did  not  want  to  do  anything  to  him, 
to  have  any  connection  with  him.  Her  relation  was  ulti- 
mate and  utterly  beyond  words,  the  hate  was  so  pure  and 
gem-like.  It  was  as  if  he  were  a  beam  of  essential  enmity, 
a  beam  of  fight  that  did  not  only  destroy  her,  but  denied  her 
altogether,  revoked  her  whole  world.  She  saw  him  as  a 
clear  stroke  of  uttermost  contradiction,  a  strange  gem-like 
being  whose  existence  defined  her  own  non-existence.  When 
she  heard  he  was  ill  again,  her  hatred  only  intensified  itself 
a  few  degrees,  if  that  were  possible.  It  stunned  her  and 
annihilated  her,  but  she  could  not  escape  it.  She  could 
not  escape  this  transfiguration  of  hatred  that  had  come  upon 
her. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

HE  LAY  sick  and  unmoved,  in  pure  opposition  to 
everything.  He  knew  how  near  to  breaking  was 
the  vessel  that  held  his  life.  He  knew  also  how  strong 
and  durable  it  was.  And  he  did  not  care.  Better  a  thousand 
times  take  one's  chance  with  death,  than  accept  a  life  one  did 
not  want.  But  best  of  all  to  persist  and  persist  and  persist 
for  ever,  till  one  were  satisfied  in  life. 

He  knew  that  Ursula  was  referred  back  to  him.  He  knew 
his  life  rested  with  her.  But  he  would  rather  not  live  than 
accept  the  love  she  proffered.  The  old  way  of  love  seemed 
a  dreadful  bondage,  a  sort  of  conscription.  What  it  was  in 
him  he  did  not  know,  but  the  thought  of  love,  marriage,  and 
children,  and  a  life  lived  together,  in  the  horrible  privacy  of 
domestic  and  connubial  satisfaction,  was  repulsive.  He 
wanted  something  clearer,  more  open,  cooler,  as  it  were. 
The  hot  narrow  intimacy  between  man  and  wife  was  abhor- 
rent. The  way  they  shut  their  doors,  these  married  people, 
and  shut  themselves  in  to  their  own  exclusive  alliance  with 
each  other,  even  in  love,  disgusted  him.  It  was  a  whole 
community  of  mistrustful  couples  insulated  in  private  houses 
or  private  rooms,  always  in  couples,  and  no  further  life,  no 
further  immediate,  no  disinterested  relationship  admitted;  a 
kaleidoscope  of  couples,  disjoined,  separatist,  meaningless 
entities  of  married-  couples.  True,  he  hated  promiscuity 
even  worse  than  marriage,  and  a  liaison  was  only  another 
kind  of  coupling,  reactionary  from  the  legal  marriage.  Re- 
action was  a  greater  bore  than  action. 

On  the  whole,  he  hated  sex,  it  was  such  a  limitation.  It 
was  sex  that  turned  a  man  into  a  broken  half  of  a  couple, 
the  woman  into  the  other  broken  half.  And  he  wanted  to 
be  single  in  himself,  the  woman  single  in  herself.  He  wanted 
sex  to  revert  to  the  level  of  the  other  appetites,  to  be  regarded 
as  a  functional  process,  not  as  a  fulfilment.  He  believed  in 
sex  marriage.      But  beyond  this,  he  wanted  a  further  con- 

S19 


220  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

junction,  where  man  had  being  and  woman  had  being,  two 
pure  beings,  each  constituting  the  freedom  of  the  other,  bal- 
ancing each  other  like  two  poles  of  one  force,  like  two  angels, 
or  two  demons. 

He  wanted  so  much  to  be  free,  not  under  the  compulsion 
of  any  need  for  unification,  or  tortured  by  unsatisfied  desire. 
Desire  and  aspiration  should  find  their  object  without  all  this 
torture,  as  now,  in  a  world  of  plenty  of  water,  simple  thirst 
is  inconsiderable,  satisfied  almost  unconsciously.  And  he 
wanted  to  be  with  Ursula  as  free  as  with  himself,  single  and 
clear  and  cool,  yet  balanced,  polarised  with  her.  The  merg- 
ing, the  clutching,  the  mingling  of  love  was  become  madly 
abhorrent  to  him. 

But  it  seemed  to  him,  woman  was  always  so  horrible  and 
clutching,  she  had  such  a  lust  for  possession,  a  greed  of  self- 
importance  in  love.  She  wanted  to  have,  to  own,  to  control, 
to  be  dominant.  Everything  must  be  referred  back  to  her, 
to  Woman,  the  Great  Mother  of  everything,  out  of  whom 
proceeded  everything  and  to  whom  everything  must  finally 
be  rendered  up. 

It  filled  him  with  almost  insane  fury,  this  calm  assumption 
of  the  Magna  Mater,  that  all  was  hers,  because  she  had  borne 
it.  Man  was  hers  because  she  had  borne  him.  A  Mater 
Dolorosa,  she  had  borne  him,  a  Magna  Mater,  she  now  claimed 
him  again,  soul  and  body,  sex,  meaning,  and  all.  He  had  a 
horror  of  the  Magna  Mater,  she  was  detestable. 

She  was  on  a  very  high  horse  again,  was  woman,  the  Great 
Mother.  Did  he  not  know  it  in  Hermione.  Hermione,  the 
humble,  the  subservient,  what  was  she  all  the  while  but  the 
Mater  Dolorosa,  in  her  subservience,  claiming  with  horrible, 
insidious  arrogance  and  female  tyranny,  her  own  again, 
claiming  back  the  man  she  had  borne  in  suffering.  By  her 
very  suffering  and  humility  she  bound  her  son  with  chains, 
she  held  him  her  everlasting  prisoner. 

And  Ursula,  Ursula  was  the  same — or  the  inverse.  She 
too,  was  the  awful,  arrogant  queen  of  life,  as  if  she  were  a 
queen  bee  on  whom  all  the  rest  depended.  He  saw  the 
yellow  flare  in  her  eyes,  he  knew  the  unthinkable  overween- 
ing assumption  of  primacy  in  her.      She  was  unconscious  of 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  221 

it  herself.  She  was  only  too  ready  to  knock  her  head  on 
the  ground  before  a  man.  But  this  was  only  when  she  was 
so  certain  of  her  man,  that  she  could  worship  him  as  a  woman 
worships  her  own  infant,  with  a  worship  of  perfect  possession. 

It  was  intolerable,  this  possession  at  the  hands  of  woman. 
Always  a  man  must  be  considered  as  the  broken-off  fragment 
of  a  woman,  and  the  sex  was  the  still  aching  scar  of  the  lacer- 
ation. Man  must  be  added  on  to  a  woman,  before  he  had 
any  real  place  or  wholeness. 

And  why?  Why  should  we  consider  ourselves,  men  and 
women,  as  broken  fragments  of  one  whole.  It  is  not  true. 
We  are  not  broken  fragments  of  one  whole.  Rather  we  are 
the  singling  away  into  purity  and  clear  being,  of  things  that 
were  mixed.  Rather  the  sex  is  that  which  remains  in  us  of 
the  mixed,  the  unresolved.  And  passion  is  the  further  sepa- 
rating of  this  mixture,  that  which  is  manly  being  taken  into 
the  being  of  the  man,  that  which  is  womanly  passing  to  the 
woman,  till  the  two  are  clear  and  whole  as  angels,  the  admix- 
ture of  sex  in  the  highest  sense  surpassed,  leaving  two  single 
beings  constellated  together  like  two  stars. 

In  the  old  age,  before  sex  was,  we  were  mixed,  each  one 
a  mixture.  The  process  of  singling  into  individuality  resulted 
into  the  great  polarisation  of  sex.  The  womanly  drew  to 
one  side,  the  manly  to  the  other.  But  the  separation  was 
imperfect  even  then.  And  so  our  world-cycle  passes.  There 
is  now  to  come  the  new  day,  when  we  are  beings  each  of  us, 
fulfilled  in  difference.  The  man  is  pure  man,  the  woman 
pure  woman,  they  are  perfectly  polarised.  But  there  is  no 
longer  any  of  the  horrible  merging,  mingling  self-abnegation 
of  love.  There  is  only  the  pure  duality  of  polarisation,  each 
one  free  from  any  contamination  of  the  other.  In  each,  the 
individual  is  primal,  sex  is  subordinate,  but  perfectly  polar- 
ised. Each  has  a  single,  separate  being,  with  its  own  laws. 
The  man  has  his  pure  freedom,  the  woman  hers.  Each 
acknowledges  the  perfection  of  the  polarised  sex-circuit. 
Each  admits  the  different  nature  in  the  other. 

So  Birkin  meditated  whilst  he  was  ill.  He  liked  some- 
times to  be  ill  enough  to  take  to  his  bed.  For  then  he  got 
better  very  quickly,  and  things  came  to  him  clear  and  sure. 


222  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

Whilst  he  was  laid  up,  Gerald  came  to  see  him.  The  two 
men  had  a  deep,  uneasy  feeling  for  each  other.  Gerald's  eyes 
were  quick  and  restless,  his  whole  manner  tense  and  impa- 
tient, he  seemed  strung  up  to  some  activity.  According  to 
conventionality,  he  wore  black  clothes,  he  looked  formal, 
handsome  and  comme  il  faut.  His  hair  was  fair  almost  to 
whiteness,  sharp  like  splinters  of  light,  his  face  was  keen  and 
ruddy,  his  body  seemed  full  of  northern  energy. 

Gerald  really  loved  Birkin,  though  he  never  quite  be- 
lieved in  him.  Birkin  was  too  unreal; — clever,  whimsical, 
wonderful,  but  not  practical  enough.  Gerald  felt  that  his 
own  understanding  was  much  sounder  and  safer.  Birkin 
was  delightful,  a  wonderful  spirit,  but  after  all,  not  to  be 
taken  seriously,  not  quite  to  be  counted  as  a  man  among 
men. 

"Why  are  you  laid  up  again?"  he  asked  kindly,  taking 
the  sick  man's  hand.  It  was  always  Gerald  who  was  pro- 
tective, offering  the  warm  shelter  of  his  physical  strength. 

"For  my  sins,  I  suppose,"  Birkin  said,  smiling  a  little 
ironically. 

"For  your  sins?  Yes,  probably  that  is  so.  You  should 
sin  less,  and  keep  better  in  health." 

"You'd  better  teach  me." 

He  looked  at  Gerald  with  ironic  eyes. 

"How  are  things  with  you?"  asked  Birkin. 

"With  me?"  Gerald  looked  at  Birkin,  saw  he  was  serious, 
and  a  warm  light  came  into  his  eyes. 

"I  don't  know  that  they're  any  different.  I  don't  see 
how  they  could  be.      There's  nothing  to  change." 

"I  suppose  you  are  conducting  the  business  as  success- 
fully as  ever,  and  ignoring  the  demand  of  the  soul." 

"That's  it,"  said  Gerald.  "At  least  as  far  as  the  business 
is  concerned.      I  couldn't  say  about  the  soul,  I'm  sure." 

"No." 

"Surely  you  don't  expect  me  to?"  laughed  Gerald. 

"No.— How  is  the  rest  of  your  affairs  progressing,  apart 
from  the  business?" 

"The  rest  of  my  affairs?  What  are  those?  I  couldn't 
say;   I  don't  know  what  you  refer  to." 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  223 

"Yes,  you  do,"  said  Birkin.  "Are  you  gloomy  or  cheer- 
ful?    And  what  about  Gudrun  Brangwen?" 

"What  about  her?"  A  confused  look  came  over  Gerald. 
"Well,"  he  added,  "I  don't  know.  I  can  only  tell  you  she 
gave  me  a  hit  over  the  face  last  time  I  saw  her." 

"A  hit  over  the  face?     What  for?" 

"That  I  couldn't  tell  you,  either." 

"Really?     But  when?" 

"The  night  of  the  party — when  Diana  was  drowned.  She 
was  driving  the  cattle  up  the  hill,  and  I  went  after  her — you 
remember." 

"Yes,  I  remember.  But  what  made  her  do  that?  You 
didn't  definitely  ask  her  for  it,  I  suppose?" 

"I?  No,  not  that  I  know  of.  I  merely  said  to  her,  that 
it  was  dangerous  to  drive  those  Highland  bullocks — as  it  is. 
She  turned  in  such  a  way,  and  said:  T  suppose  you  think 
I'm  afraid  of  you  and  your  cattle,  don't  you?'  So  I  asked 
her  'why,'  and  for  answer  she  flung  me  a  back-hander  across 
the  face." 

Birkin  laughed  quickly,  as  if  it  pleased  him.  Gerald 
looked  at  him,  wondering,  and  began  to  laugh  as  well,  saying: 

"I  didn't  laugh  at  the  time,  I  assure  you.  I  was  never 
so  taken  aback  in  my  life." 

"And  weren't  you  furious?" 

"Furious?  I  should  think  I  was.  I'd  have  murdered 
her  for  two  pins." 

"Hm!"  ejaculated  Birkin.  "Poor  Gudrun,  wouldn't  she 
suffer  afterwards  for  having  given  herself  away!"  He  was 
hugely  delighted. 

"Would  she  suffer?"  asked  Gerald,  also  amused  now. 

Both  men  smiled  in  malice  and  amusement. 

"Badly,  I  should  think;  seeing  how  self-conscious  she  is." 

"She  is  self-conscious,  is  she?  Then  what  made  her  do  it? 
For  I  certainly  think  it  was  quite  uncalled-for,  and  quite 
unjustified." 

"I  suppose  it  was  a  sudden  impulse." 

"Yea,  but  how  do  you  account  for  her  having  such  an 
impulse?     I'd  done  her  no  harm." 

Birkin  shook  his  head. 


224  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

"The  Amazon  suddenly  came  up  in  her,  I  suppose,"  he 
said. 

"Well,"  replied  Gerald,  "I'd  rather  it  had  been  the  Ori- 
noco." 

They  both  laughed  lightly  at  the  poor  joke.  Gerald  was 
thinking  how  Gudrun  had  said  she  would  strike  the  last  blow 
too.     But  some  reserve  made  him  keep  this  back  from  Birkin. 

"And  you  resent  it?"  Birkin  asked. 

"I  don't  resent  it.  I  don't  care  a  tinker's  curse  about 
it."  He  was  silent  a  moment,  then  he  added,  laughing,  "No, 
I'll  see  it  through,  that's  all.      She  seemed  sorry  afterwards." 

"Did  she?     You've  not  met  since  that  night?" 

Gerald's  face  clouded. 

"No,"  he  said.  "We've  been — you  can  imagine  how  it's 
been,  since  the  accident." 

"Yes.      Is  it  calming  down?" 

"I  don't  know.  It's  a  shock,  of  course.  But  I  don't 
believe  mother  minds.  I  really  don't  believe  she  takes  any 
notice.  And  what's  so  funny,  she  used  to  be  all  for  the 
children — nothing  mattered,  nothing  whatever  mattered  but 
the  children.  And  now,  she  doesn't  take  any  more  notice 
than  if  it  was  one  of  the  servants." 

"No?     Did  it  upset  you  very  much?" 

"It's  a  shock.  But  I  don't  feel  it  very  much,  really.  I 
don't  feel  any  different.  We've  all  got  to  die,  and  it  doesn't 
seem  to  make  any  great  difference,  anyhow,  whether  you  die 
or  not.  I  can't  feel  any  grief,  you  know.  It  leaves  me  cold. 
I  can't  quite  account  for  it." 

"You  don't  care  if  you  die  or  not?"  asked  Birkin. 

Gerald  looked  at  him  with  eyes  blue  as  the  blue-fibred 
steel  of  a  weapon.  He  felt  awkward,  but  indifferent.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  he  did  care  terribly,  with  a  great  fear. 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "I  don't  want  to  die,  why  should  I?  But 
I  never  trouble.  The  question  doesn't  seem  to  be  on  the 
carpet  for  me  at  all.     It  doesn't  interest  me,  you  know." 

"Timor  mortis  conturbat  me,"  quoted  Birkin,  adding: 
"No,  death  doesn't  really  seem  the  point  any  more.  It 
curiously  doesn't  concern  one.  It's  like  an  ordinary  to-mor- 
row." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  225 

Gerald  looked  closely  at  his  friend.  The  eyes  of  the  two 
men  met,  and  an  unspoken  understanding  was  exchanged. 

Gerald  narrowed  his  eyes,  his  face  was  cool  and  unscru- 
pulous as  he  looked  at  Birkin,  impersonally,  with  a  vision 
that  ended  in  a  point  in  space,  strangely  keen-eyed  and  yet 
blind. 

"If  death  isn't  the  point,"  he  said,  in  a  strangely  abstract, 
cold,  fine  voice,  "what  is?"  He  sounded  as  if  he  had  been 
found  out. 

"What  is?"  re-echoed  Birkin.  And  there  was  a  mocking 
silence. 

"There's  a  long  way  to  go,  after  the  point  of  intrinsic 
death,  before  we  disappear,"  said  Birkin. 

"There  is,"  said  Gerald.  "But  what  sort  of  way?"  He 
seemed  to  press  the  other  man  for  knowledge  which  he  him- 
self knew  far  better  than  Birkin  did. 

"Right  down  the  slopes  of  degeneration — mystic,  universal 
degeneration.  There  are  many  stages  of  pure  degradation  to 
go  through;  age  long.  We  live  on  long  after  our  death  and 
progressively,  of  progressive  devolution." 

Gerald  listened  with  a  faint,  fine  smile  on  his  face,  all 
the  time,  as  if,  somewhere,  he  knew  so  much  better  than 
Birkin,  all  about  this;  as  if  his  own  knowledge  were  direct  and 
personal,  whereas  Birkin's  was  a  matter  of  observation  and 
inference,  not  quite  hitting  the  nail  on  the  head:  though  aim- 
ing near  enough  at  it.  But  he  was  not  going  to  give  himself 
away.  If  Birkin  could  get  at  the  secrets,  let  him.  Gerald 
would  never  help  him.  Gerald  would  be  a  dark  horse  to 
the  end. 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  with  a  startling  change  of  conversa- 
tion, "it  is  father  who  really  feels  it.  It  will  finish  him. 
For  him  the  world  collapses.  All  his  care  now  is  for  Winnie — 
he  must  save  Winnie.  He  says  she  ought  to  be  sent  away  to 
school,  but  she  won't  hear  of  it,  and  he'll  never  do  it.  Of 
course  she  is  in  rather  a  queer  way.  We're  all  of  us  cur- 
iously bad  at  living.  We  can  do  things — but  we  can't  get 
on  with  life  at  all.     It's  curious — a  family  failing." 

"She  oughtn't  to  be  sent  away  to  school."  said  Birkin, 
who  was  considering  a  new  proposition. 


226  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"She  oughtn't.      Why?" 

"She's  a  queer  child — a  special  child,  more  special  even 
than  you.  And  in  my  opinion  special  children  should  never 
be  sent  away  to  school.  Only  moderately  ordinary  children 
should  be  sent  to  school — so  it  seems  to  me." 

"I'm  inclined  to  think  just  the  opposite.  I  think  it  would 
probably  make  her  more  normal  if  she  went  way  and  mixed 
with  other  children." 

"She  wouldn't  mix,  you  see.  You  never  really  mixed, 
did  you?  And  she  wouldn't  be  willing  even  to  pretend  to. 
She's  proud,  and  solitary,  and  naturally  apart.  If  she  has  a 
single  nature,  why  do  you  want  to  make  her  gregarious?" 

"No,  I  don't  want  to  make  her  anything.  But  I  think 
school  would  be  good  for  her." 

"Was  it  good  for  you?" 

Gerald's  eyes  narrowed  uglily.  School  had  been  torture 
to  him.  Yet  he  had  not  questioned  whether  one  should  go 
through  this  torture.  He  seemed  to  believe  in  education 
through  subjection  and  torment. 

"I  hated  it  at  the  time,  but  I  can  see  it  was  necessary," 
he  said.  "It  brought  me  into  line  a  bit — and  you  can't  live 
unless  you  do  come  into  line  somewhere." 

"Well,"  said  Birkin,  "I  begin  to  think  that  you  can't  live 
unless  you  keep  entirely  out  of  the  line.  It's  no  good  trying 
to  toe  the  line,  when  your  one  impulse  is  to  smash  up  the 
line. — Winnie  is  a  special  nature,  and  for  special  natures  you 
must  give  a  special  world." 

"Yes,  but  where's  your  special  world?"  said  Gerald. 

"Make  it. — Instead  of  chopping  yourself  down  to  fit  the 
world,  chop  the  world  down  to  fit  yourself. — As  a  matter  of 
fact,  two  exceptional  people  make  another  world.  You  and 
I,  we  make  another,  separate  world. — You  don't  want  a  world 
same  as  your  brothers-in-law.  It's  just  the  special  quality 
you  value.  Do  you  want  to  be  normal  or  ordinary?  It's  a 
lie.  You  want  to  be  free  and  extraordinary,  in  an  extraor- 
dinary world  of  liberty." 

Gerald  looked  at  Birkin  with  subtle  eyes  of  knowledge. 
But  he  would  never  openly  admit  what  he  felt;  he  knew  more 
than  Birkin,  in  one  direction — much  more.      And  this  gave 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  227 

him  his  gentle  love  for  the  other  man,  as  if  Birkin  were  in 
some  way  young,  innocent,  child-like;  so  amazingly  clever, 
but  incurably  innocent. 

"Yet  you  are  so  banal  as  to  consider  me  chiefly  a  freak," 
said  Birkin  pointedly. 

"A  freak?"  exclaimed  Gerald,  startled.  And  his  face 
opened  suddenly,  as  if  lighted  with  simplicity,  as  when  a 
flower  opens  out  of  the  cunning  bud.  "No — I  never  con- 
sider you  a  freak."  And  he  watched  the  other  man  with 
strange  eyes,  that  Birkin  could  not  understand.  "I  feel," 
Gerald  continued,  "that  there  is  always  an  element  of  uncer- 
tainty about  you — perhaps  you  are  uncertain  about  yourself. 
But  I'm  never  sure  of  you.  You  can  go  away  and  change  as 
easily  as  if  you  had  no  soul." 

He  looked  at  Birkin  with  penetrating  eyes.  Birkin  was 
amazed.  He  thought  he  had  all  the  soul  in  the  world.  He 
stared  in  amazement.  And  Gerald,  watching,  saw  the  amaz- 
ing attractive  goodliness  of  his  eyes,  a  young,  spontaneous 
goodness  that  attracted  the  other  man  infinitely,  yet  filled 
him  with  bitter  chagrin,  because  he  mistrusted  it  so  much. 
He  knew  Birkin  could  do  without  him — could  forget,  and  not 
suffer.  This  was  always  present  in  Gerald's  consciousness, 
filling  him  with  bitter  unbelief:  this  consciousness  of  the 
young,  animal-like  spontaneity  of  detachment.  It  seemed 
almost  like  hypocrisy  and  lying,  sometimes,  oh,  often,  on 
Birkin's  part,  to  talk  so  deeply  and  importantly. 

Quite  other  things  were  going  through  Birkin's  mind. 
Suddenly  he  saw  himself  confronted  with  another  problem — 
the  problem  of  love  and  eternal  conjunction  between  two 
men.  Of  course  this  was  necessary — it  had  been  a  necessity 
inside  himself  all  his  life — to  love  a  man  purely  and  fully. 
Of  course  he  had  been  loving  Gerald  all  along,  and  all  along 
denying  it. 

He  lay  in  the  bed  and  wondered,  whilst  his  friend  sat 
beside  him,  lost  in  brooding.  Each  man  was  gone  in  his  own 
thoughts. 

"You  know  how  the  old  German  knights  used  to  swear  a 
Blutbruderschaft?"  he  said  to  Gerald,  with  quite  a  new  happy 
activity  in  his  eyes. 


228  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Make  a  little  wound  in  their  arms,  and  rub  each  other's 
blood  into  the  cut?"  said  Gerald. 

"Yes — and  swear  to  be  true  to  each  other,  of  one  blood, 
all  their  lives. — That  is  what  we  ought  to  do.  No  wounds, 
that  is  obsolete. — But  we  ought  to  swear  to  love  each  other, 
you  and  I,  implicitly,  and  perfectly,  finally,  without  any  pos- 
sibility of  going  back  on  it." 

He  looked  at  Gerald  with  clear,  happy  eyes  of  discovery. 
Gerald  looked  down  at  him,  attracted,  so  deeply  bondaged  in 
fascinated  attraction,  that  he  was  mistrustful,  resenting  the 
bondage,  hating  the  attraction. 

"We  will  swear  to  each  other,  one  day,  shall  we?"  pleaded 
Birkin.  "We  will  swear  to  stand  by  each  other — be  true  to 
each  other — ultimately — infallibly — given  to  each  other,  or- 
ganically— without  possibility  of  taking  back." 

Birkin  sought  hard  to  express  himself.  But  Gerald  hardly 
listened.  His  face  shone  with  a  certain  luminous  pleasure. 
He  was  pleased.  But  he  kept  his  reserve.  He  held  himself 
back. 

"Shall  we  swear  to  each  other,  one  day?"  said  Birkin, 
putting  out  his  hand  towards  Gerald. 

Gerald  just  touched  the  extended  fine,  living  hand,  as  if 
withheld  and  afraid. 

"We'll  leave  it  till  I  understand  it  better,"  he  said,  in  a 
voice  of  excuse. 

Birkin  watched  him.  A  little  sharp  disappointment,  per- 
haps a  touch  of  contempt,  came  into  his  heart. 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "You  must  tell  me  what  you  think, 
later.  You  know  what  I  mean?  Not  sloppy  emotionalism. 
An  impersonal  union  that  leaves  one  free." 

They  lapsed  both  into  silence.  Birkin  was  looking  at 
Gerald  all  the  time.  He  seemed  now  to  see,  not  the  physical, 
animal  man,  which  he  usually  saw  in  Gerald,  and  which 
usually  he  liked  so  much,  but  the  man  himself,  complete, 
and  as  if  fated,  doomed,  limited.  This  strange  sense  of 
fatality  in  Gerald,  as  if  he  were  limited  to  one  form  of  exist- 
ence, one  knowledge,  one  activity,  a  sort  of  fatal  halfness, 
which  to  himself  seemed  wholeness,  always  overcame  Birkin 
after  their  moments  of  passionate  approach,  and  filled  him 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  229 

with  a  sort  of  contempt,  or  boredom.  It  was  the  insistence 
on  the  limitation  which  so  bored  Birkin  in  Gerald.  Gerald 
could  never  fly  away  from  himself,  in  real  indifferent  gaiety. 
He  had  a  clog,  a  sort  of  monomania. 

There  was  silence  for  a  time.  Then  Birkin  said,  in  a 
lighter  tone,  letting  the  stress  of  the  contact  pass: 

"Can't  you  get  a  good  governess  for  Winifred? — somebody 
exceptional?" 

"Hermione  Roddice  suggested  we  should  ask  Gudrun  to 
teach  her  to  draw  and  to  model  in  clay.  You  know  Winnie 
is  astonishingly  clever  with  that  plasticine  stuff.  Hermione 
declares  she  is  an  artist."  Gerald  spoke  in  the  usual  ani- 
mated, chatty  manner,  as  if  nothing  unusual  had  passed. 
But  Birkin's  manner  was  full  of  reminder. 

"Really?  I  didn't  know  that. — Oh,  well  then,  if  Gudrun 
uxmld  teach  her,  it  would  be  perfect — couldn't  be  anything 
better — if  Winifred  is  an  artist.  Because  Gudrun  somewhere 
is  one.     And  every  true  artist  is  the  salvation  of  every  other." 

"I  thought  they  got  on  so  badly,  as  a  rule." 

"Perhaps.  But  only  artists  produce  for  each  other  the 
world  that  is  fit  to  live  in.  If  you  can  arrange  that  for  Wini- 
fred, it  is  perfect." 

"But  you  think  she  wouldn't  come?" 

"I  don't  know.  Gudrun  is  rather  self-opinionated.  She 
won't  go  cheap  anywhere.  Or  if  she  does,  she'll  pretty  soon 
take  herself  back.  So  whether  she  would  condescend  to  do 
private  teaching,  particularly  here,  in  Beldover,  I  don't  know. 
But  it  would  be  just  the  thing.  Winifred  has  got  a  special 
nature.  And  if  you  can  put  into  her  way  the  means  of  being 
self-sufficient,  that  is  the  best  thing  possible.  She'll  never 
get  on  with  the  ordinary  life.  You  find  it  difficult  enough 
yourself,  and  she  is  several  skins  thinner  than  you  are.  It 
is  awful  to  think  what  her  life  will  be  like  unless  she  does 
find  a  means  of  expression,  some  way  of  fulfilment.  You 
can  see  what  mere  leaving  it  to  fate  brings.  You  can  see 
how  much  marriage  is  to  be  trusted  to — look  at  your  own 
mother." 

"Do  you  think  mother  is  abnormal?" 

"No!     I  think  she  only  wanted  something  more,  or  other 


230  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

than  the  common  run  of  life.  And  not  getting  it,  she  has 
gone  wrong,  perhaps." 

"After  producing  a  brood  of  wrong  children,"  said  Gerald 
gloomily. 

"No  more  wrong  than  any  of  the  rest  of  us,"  Birkin  re- 
plied. "The  most  normal  people  have  the  worst  subterranean 
selves,  take  them  one  by  one." 

"Sometimes  I  think  it  is  a  curse  to  be  alive,"  said  Gerald, 
with  sudden  impotent  anger. 

"Well,"  said  Birkin,  "why  not?  Let  it  be  a  curse  some- 
times to  be  alive — at  other  times  it  is  anything  but  a  curse. 
You've  got  plenty  of  zest  in  it  really." 

"Less  than  you'd  think,"  said  Gerald,  revealing  a  strange 
poverty  in  his  look  at  the  other  man. 

There  was  silence,  each  thinking  his  own  thoughts. 

"I  don't  see  what  she  has  to  distinguish  between  teaching 
at  the  Grammar  School,  and  coming  to  teach  Win,"  said 
Gerald. 

"The  difference  between  a  public  servant  and  a  private 
one.  The  only  nobleman  to-day,  king  and  only  aristocrat, 
is  the  public,  the  public.  You  are  quite  willing  to  serve  the 
public — but  to  be  a  private  tutor* — " 

"I  don't  want  to  serve  either — " 

"No!     And  Gudrun  will  probably  feel  the  same." 

Gerald  thought  for  a  few  minutes.      Then  he  said: 

"At  all  events,  father  won't  make  her  feel  like  a  private 
servant.      He  will  be  fussy  and  grateful  enough." 

"So  he  ought.  And  so  ought  all  of  you.  Do  you  think 
you  can  hire  a  woman  like  Gudrun  Brangwen  with  money? 
She  is  your  equal  like  anything — probably  your  superior." 

"Is  she?"  said  Gerald. 

"Yes,  and  if  you  haven't  the  guts  to  know  it,  I  hope  she'll 
leave  you  to  your  own  devices." 

"Nevertheless,"  said  Gerald,  "if  she  is  my  equal,  I  wish 
she  weren't  a  teacher,  because  I  don't  think  teachers  as  a 
rule  are  my  equal." 

"Nor  do  I,  damn  them.  But  am  I  a  teacher  because  I 
teach,  or  a  parson  because  I  preach?" 

Gerald  laughed.      He  was  always  uneasy  on  this  score. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  231 

He  did  not  want  to  claim  social  superiority,  yet  he  would  not 
claim  intrinsic  personal  superiority,  because  he  would  never 
base  his  standard  of  values  on  pure  being.  So  he  wobbled 
upon  a  tacit  assumption  of  social  standing.  Now  Birkin 
wanted  him  to  accept  the  fact  of  intrinsic  difference  between 
human  beings,  which  he  did  not  intend  to  accept.  It  was 
against  his  social  honour,  his  principle.     He  rose  to  go. 

"I've  been  neglecting  my  business  all  this  while,"  he  said 
smiling. 

"I  ought  to  have  reminded  you  before,"  Birkin  replied, 
laughing  and  mocking. 

"I  knew  you'd  say  something  like  that,"  laughed  Gerald, 
rather  uneasily. 

"Did  you?" 

"Yes,  Rupert.  It  wouldn't  do  for  us  all  to  be  like  you 
are — we  should  soon  be  in  the  cart.  When  I  am  above  the 
world,  I  shall  ignore  all  businesses." 

"Of  course,  we're  not  in  the  cart  now,"  said  Birkin,  satiri- 
cally. 

"Not  as  much  as  you  make  out.  At  any  rate,  we  have 
enough  to  eat  and  drink — " 

"And  be  satisfied,"  added  Birkin. 

Gerald  came  near  the  bed  and  stood  looking  down  at  Bir- 
kin whose  throat  was  exposed,  whose  tossed  hair  fell  attract- 
ively on  the  warm  brow,  above  the  eyes  that  were  so  unchal- 
lenged and  still  in  the  satirical  face.  Gerald,  full-limbed  and 
turgid  with  energy,  stood  unwilling  to  go,  he  was  held  by  the 
presence  of  the  other  man.  He  had  not  the  power  to  go 
away. 

"So,"  said  Birkin.  "Good-bye."  And  he  reached  out 
his  hand  from  under  the  bed-clothes,  smiling  with  a  glimmer- 
ing look. 

"Good-bye,"  said  Gerald,  taking  the  vivid  hand  of  his 
friend  in  a  firm  grasp.  "I  shall  come  again.  I  miss  you 
down  at  the  mill." 

"I'll  be  there  in  a  few  days,"  said  Birkin. 

The  eyes  of  the  two  men  met  again.  Gerald's,  that  were 
keen  as  a  hawk's,  were  suffused  now  with  warm  light  and 
with  unadmitted  love,  Birkin  looked  back  as  out  of  a  dark- 


232  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

ness,  unsounded  and  unknown,  yet  with  a  kind  of  warmth, 
that  seemed  to  flow  over  Gerald's  brain  like  a  fertile  sleep. 

"Good-bye,  then.     There's  nothing  I  can  do  for  you?" 

"Nothing,  thanks." 

Birkin  watched  the  black-clothed  form  of  the  other  man 
move  out  of  the  door,  the  bright  head  was  gone,  he  turned 
over  to  sleep. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

IN  BELDOVER,  there  was  both  for  Ursula  and  for  Gudrun 
an  interval.  It  seemed  to  Ursula  as  if  Birkin  had  gone 
out  of  her  for  the  time,  he  had  lost  his  significance,  he 
scarcely  mattered  in  her  world.  She  had  her  own  friends, 
her  own  activities,  her  own  life.  She  turned  back  to  the  old 
ways  with  zest,  away  from  him. 

And  Gudrun,  after  feeling  every  moment  in  all  her  veins 
conscious  of  Gerald  Crich,  connected  even  physically  with 
him,  was  now  almost  indifferent  to  the  thought  of  him.  She 
was  nursing  new  schemes  for  going  away  and  trying  a  new 
form  of  life.  All  the  time,  there  was  something  in  her  urging 
her  to  avoid  the  final  establishing  of  a  relationship  with  Gerald. 
She  felt  it  would  be  wiser  and  better  to  have  no  more  than  a 
casual  acquaintance  with  him. 

She  had  a  scheme  for  going  to  St.  Petersburg,  where  she 
had  a  friend  who  was  a  sculptor  like  herself,  and  who  lived 
with  a  wealthy  Russian  whose  hobby  was  jewel-making.  The 
emotional,  rather  rootless  life  of  the  Russians  appealed  to  her. 
She  did  not  want  to  go  to  Paris.  Paris  was  dry,  and  essen- 
tially boring.  She  would  like  to  go  to  Rome,  Munich,  Vienna, 
or  to  St.  Petersburg  or  Moscow.  She  had  a  friend  in  St. 
Petersburg  and  a  friend  in  Munich.  To  each  of  these  she 
wrote,  asking  about  rooms. 

She  had  a  certain  amount  of  money.  She  had  come  home 
partly  to  save,  and  now  she  had  sold  several  pieces  of  work, 
she  had  been  praised  in  various  shows.  She  knew  she  could 
become  quite  the  "go"  if  she  went  to  London.  But  she  knew 
London,  she  wanted  something  else.  She  had  seventy  pounds, 
of  which  nobody  knew  anything.  She  would  move  soon,  as 
soon  as  she  heard  from  her  friends.  Her  nature,  in  spite  of 
her  apparent  placidity  and  calm,  was  profoundly  restless. 

The  sisters  happened  to  call  in  a  cottage  in  Willey  Green 
to  buy  honey.  Mrs.  Kirk,  a  stout,  pale,  sharp-nosed  woman, 
sly,  honied,  with  something  shrewish  and  cat-like  beneath, 

283 


234  WOMEN  IN   LOVE 

asked  the  girls  into  her  too-cosy,  too-tidy  kitchen.  There 
was  a  cat-like  comfort  and  cleanliness  everywhere. 

"Yes,  Miss  Brangwen,"  she  said,  in  her  slightly  whining, 
insinuating  voice,  "and  how  do  you  like  being  back  in  the  old 
place  then?" 

Gudrun,  whom  she  addressed,  hated  her  at  once. 

"I  don't  care  for  it,"  she  replied  abruptly. 

"You  don't?  Ay,  well,  I  suppose  you  found  a  difference 
from  London.  You  like  life,  and  big,  grand  places.  Some  of 
us  has  to  be  content  with  Willey  Green  and  Beldover.  And 
what  do  you  think  of  our  Grammar  School,  as  there's  so  much 
talk  about?" 

"What  do  I  think  of  it?"  Gudrun  looked  round  at  her 
slowly.      "Do  you  mean,  do  I  think  it's  a  good  school?" 

"Yes.      What  is  your  opinion  of  it?" 

"I  do  think  it's  a  good  school." 

Gudrun  was  very  cold  and  repelling.  She  knew  the  com- 
mon people  hated  the  school. 

"Ay,  you  do,  then?  I've  heard  so  much,  one  way  and  the 
other.  It's  nice  to  know  what  those  that's  in  it  feel.  But 
opinions  vary,  don't  they?  Mr.  Crich  up  at  Highclose  is  all 
for  it.  Ay,  poor  man,  I'm  afraid  he's  not  long  for  this  world. 
He's  very  poorly." 

"Is  he  worse?"  asked  Ursula. 

"Eh,  yes — since  they  lost  Miss  Diana.  He's  gone  off  to 
a  shadow.     Poor  man,  he's  had  a  world  of  trouble." 

"Has  he?"  asked  Gudrun,  faintly  ironic. 

"He  has,  a  world  of  trouble.  And  as  nice  and  kind  a 
gentleman  as  ever  you  could  wish  to  meet.  His  children 
don't  take  after  him." 

"I  suppose  they  take  after  their  mother?"  said  Ursula. 

"In  many  ways."  Mrs.  Kirk  lowered  her  voice  a  little. 
"She  was  a  proud,  haughty  lady  when  she  came  into  these 
parts — my  word,  she  was  that!  She  mustn't  be  looked  at, 
and  it  was  worth  your  life  to  speak  to  her."  The  woman 
made  a  dry,  sly  face. 

"Did  you  know  her  when  she  was  first  married?" 

"Yes,  I  knew  her.  I  nursed  three  of  her  children.  And 
proper  little  terrors  they  were,  little  fiends — that  Gerald  was 


WOMEN  EST  LOVE  235 

a  demon  if  ever  there  was  one,  a  proper  demon,  ay,  at  six 
month's  old."  A  curious,  malicious,  sly  tone  came  into  the 
woman's  voice. 

"Really,"  said  Gudrun. 

"That  wilful,  masterful — he'd  mastered  one  nurse  at  six 
months.  Kick,  and  scream,  and  struggle  like  a  demon. 
Many's  the  time  I've  pinched  his  little  bottom  for  him,  when 
he  was  a  child  in  arms.  Ay,  and  he'd  have  been  better  if 
he'd  had  it  pinched  oftener.  But  she  wouldn't  have  them 
corrected — no-o,  wouldn't  hear  of  it.  I  can  remember  the 
rows  she  had  with  Mr.  Crich,  my  word.  When  he'd  got 
worked  up,  properly  worked  up  till  he  could  stand  no  more, 
he'd  lock  the  study  door  and  whip  them.  But  she  paced  up 
and  down  all  the  while  like  a  tiger  outside,  like  a  tiger,  with 
very  murder  in  her  face.  She  had  a  face  that  could  look 
death.  And  when  the  door  was  opened,  she'd  go  in  with  her 
hands  lifted — 'What  have  you  been  doing  to  my  children,  you 
coward?'  She  was  like  one  out  of  her  mind.  I  believe  he 
was  frightened  of  her;  he  had  to  be  driven  mad  before  he'd 
lift  a  finger.  Didn't  the  servants  have  a  life  of  it?  And 
didn't  we  used  to  be  thankful  when  one  of  them  caught  it. 
They  were  the  torment  of  your  life." 

"Really!"  said  Gudrun. 

"In  every  possible  way.  If  you  wouldn't  let  them  smash 
their  pots  on  the  table,  if  you  wouldn't  let  them  drag  the  kit- 
ten about  with  a  string  round  its  neck,  if  you  wouldn't  give 
them  whatever  they  asked  for,  every  mortal  thing — then  there 
was  a  shine  on,  and  their  mother  coming  in  asking:  'What's 
the  matter  with  him?  What  have  you  done  to  him?  What 
is  it,  Darling?'  And  then  she'd  turn  on  you  as  if  she'd  trample 
you  under  her  feet. — But  she  didn't  trample  on  me.  I  was 
the  only  one  that  could  do  anything  with  her  demons — for  she 
wasn't  going  to  be  bothered  with  them  herself.  No,  she  took 
no  trouble  for  them.  But  they  must  just  have  their  way, 
they  mustn't  be  spoken  to.  And  Master  Gerald  was  the 
beauty.  I  left  when  he  was  a  year  and  a  half,  I  could  stand 
no  more.  But  I  pinched  his  little  bottom  for  him  when  he 
was  in  arms,  I  did,  when  there  was  no  holding  him,  and  I'm 
not  sorry  I  did." 


236  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

Gudrun  went  away  in  fury  and  loathing.  The  phrase,  "I 
pinched  his  little  bottom  for  him,"  sent  her  into  a  white, 
stony  fury.  She  could  not  bear  it,  she  wanted  to  have  the 
woman  taken  out  at  once  and  strangled.  And  yet  there  the 
phrase  was  lodged  in  her  mind  for  ever,  beyond  escape.  She 
felt,  one  day,  she  would  have  to  tell  him,  to  see  how  he  took 
it.     And  she  loathed  herself  for  the  thought. 

But  at  Shortlands  the  life-long  struggle  was  coming  to  a 
close.  The  father  was  ill  and  was  going  to  die.  He  had  bad 
internal  pains,  which  took  away  all  his  attentive  life,  and  left 
him  with  only  a  vestige  of  his  consciousness.  More  and  more 
a  silence  came  over  him,  he  was  less  and  less  acutely  aware  of 
his  surroundings.  The  pain  seemed  to  absorb  his  activity. 
He  knew  it  was  there,  he  knew  it  would  come  again.  It  was 
like  something  lurking  in  the  darkness  within  him.  And  he 
had  not  the  power,  or  the  will,  to  seek  it  out  and  to  know  it. 
There  it  remained  in  the  darkness,  the  great  pain,  tearing  him 
at  times,  and  then  being  silent.  And  when  it  tore  him  he 
crouched  in  silent  subjection  under  it,  and  when  it  left  him 
alone  again,  he  refused  to  know  of  it.  It  was  within  the 
darkness,  let  it  remain  unknown.  So  he  never  admitted  it, 
except  in  a  secret  corner  of  himself,  where  all  his  never-re- 
vealed fears  and  secrets  were  accumulated.  For  the  rest,  he 
had  a  pain,  it  went  away,  it  made  no  difference.  It  even 
stimulated  him,  excited  him. 

But  it  gradually  absorbed  his  life.  Gradually  it  drew 
away  all  his  potentiality,  it  bled  him  into  the  dark,  it  weaned 
him  of  life  and  drew  him  away  into  the  darkness.  And  in 
this  twilight  of  his  life  little  remained  visible  to  him.  The 
business,  his  work,  that  was  gone  entirely.  His  public  inter- 
ests had  disappeared  as  if  they  had  never  been.  Even  his 
family  had  become  extraneous  to  him,  he  could  only  remem- 
ber, in  some  slight  non-essential  part  of  himself,  that  such  and 
such  were  his  children.  But  it  was  historical  fact,  not  vital 
to  him.  He  had  to  make  an  effort  to  know  their  relation  to 
him.  Even  his  wife  barely  existed.  She  indeed  was  like  the 
darkness,  like  the  pain  within  him.  By  some  strange  associa- 
tion, the  darkness  that  contained  the  pain  and  the  darkness 
that  contained  his  wife  were  identical.     All  his  thoughts  and 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  237 

understandings  became  blurred  and  fused,  and  now  his  wife 
and  the  consuming  pain  were  the  same  dark  secret  power  against 
him,  that  he  never  faced.  He  never  drove  the  dread  out  of 
its  lair  within  him.  He  only  knew  that  there  was  a  dark 
place,  and  something  inhabiting  this  darkness  which  issued 
from  time  to  time  and  rent  him.  But  he  dared  not  penetrate 
and  drive  the  beast  into  the  open.  He  had  rather  ignore  its 
existence.  Only,  in  his  vague  way,  the  dread  was  his  wife, 
the  destroyer,  and  it  was  the  pain,  the  destruction,  a  dark- 
ness which  was  one  and  both. 

He  very  rarely  saw  his  wife.  She  kept  her  room.  Only 
occasionally  she  came  forth,  with  her  head  stretched  forward, 
and  in  her  low,  possessed  voice,  she  asked  him  how  he  was. 
And  he  answered  her,  in  the  habit  of  more  than  thirty  years: 
"Well,  I  don't  think  I'm  any  the  worse,  dear."  But  he  was 
frightened  of  her,  underneath  this  safeguard  of  habit,  fright- 
ened almost  to  the  verge  of  death. 

But  all  his  life,  he  had  been  so  constant  to  his  lights,  he 
had  never  broken  down.  He  would  die  even  now  without 
breaking  down,  without  knowing  what  his  feelings  were, 
towards  her.  All  his  life,  he  had  said :  "Poor  Christiana,  she 
has  such  a  strong  temper."  With  unbroken  will,  he  had  stood 
by  this  position  with  regard  to  her,  he  had  substituted  pity 
for  all  his  hostility,  pity  had  been  his  shield  and  his  safeguard, 
and  his  infallible  weapon.  And  still,  in  his  consciousness,  he 
was  sorry  for  her,  her  nature  was  so  violent  and  so  impatient. 

But  now  his  pity,  with  his  life,  was  wearing  him,  and  the 
dread  almost  amounting  to  horror,  was  rising  into  being. 
But  before  the  armour  of  his  pity  really  broke,  he  would  die, 
as  an  insect  when  its  shell  is  cracked.  This  was  his  final 
resource.  Others  would  live  on,  and  know  the  living  death, 
the  ensuing  process  of  hopeless  chaos.  He  would  not.  He 
denied  death  its  victory. 

He  had  been  so  constant  to  his  lights,  so  constant  to 
charity,  and  to  his  love  for  his  neighbour.  Perhaps  he  had 
loved  his  neighbour  even  better  than  himself — which  is  going 
one  further  than  the  commandment.  Always,  this  flame  had 
burned  in  his  heart,  sustaining  him  through  everything,  the 
welfare  of  the  people.     He  was  a  large  employer  of  labour,  he 


238  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

was  a  great  mine-owner.  And  he  had  never  lost  this  from 
his  heart,  that  in  Christ  he  was  one  with  his  workmen.  Nay, 
he  had  felt  inferior  to  them,  as  if  they,  through  poverty  and 
labour,  were  nearer  to  God  than  he.  He  had  always  the 
unacknowledged  belief,  that  it  was  his  workmen,  the  miners, 
who  held  in  their  hands  the  means  of  salvation.  To  move 
nearer  to  God,  he  must  move  towards  his  miners,  his  life  must 
gravitate  towards  theirs.  They  were,  unconsciously,  his  idol, 
his  God  made  manifest.  In  them  he  worshipped  the  highest, 
the  great,  sympathetic,  mindless  Godhead  of  humanity. 

And  all  the  while,  his  wife  had  opposed  him  like  one  of  the 
great  demons  of  hell.  Strange,  like  a  bird  of  prey,  with  the 
fascinating  beauty  and  abstraction  of  a  hawk,  she  had  beat 
against  the  bars  of  his  philanthropy,  and  like  a  hawk  in  a 
cage,  she  had  sunk  into  silence.  By  force  of  circumstance, 
because  all  the  world  combined  to  make  the  cage  unbreakable, 
he  had  been  too  strong  for  her,  he  had  kept  her  prisoner. 
And  because  she  was  his  prisoner,  his  passion  for  her  had 
always  remained  keen  as  death.  He  had  always  loved  her, 
loved  her  with  intensity.  Within  the  cage,  she  was  denied 
nothing,  she  was  given  all  license. 

But  she  had  gone  almost  mad.  Of  wild  and  overweening 
temper,  she  could  not  bear  the  humiliation  of  her  husband's 
soft,  half-appealing  kindness  to  everybody.  He  was  not  de- 
ceived by  the  poor.  He  knew  they  came  and  sponged  on 
him,  and  whined  to  him,  the  worse  sort;  the  majority,  luckily 
for  him,  were  much  too  proud  to  ask  for  anything,  much  too 
independent  to  come  knocking  at  his  door.  But  in  Beld- 
over,  as  everywhere  else,  there  were  the  whining,  parasitic, 
foul  human  beings  who  come  crawling  after  charity,  and  feed- 
ing on  the  living  body  of  the  public  like  lice.  A  kind  of  fire 
would  go  over  Christiana  Crich's  brain,  as  she  saw  two  more 
pale-faced,  creeping  women  in  objectionable  black  clothes, 
cringing  lugubriously  up  the  drive  to  the  door.  She  wanted 
to  set  the  dogs  on  them,  "Hi  Rip!  Hi  Ring!  Ranger!  At 
'em  boys,  set  'em  off!"  But  Crowther,  the  butler,  with  all 
the  rest  of  the  servants,  was  Mr.  Crich's  man.  Neverthe- 
less, when  her  husband  was  away,  she  would  come  down  like 
a  wolf  on  the  crawling  supplicants:    "What  do  you  people 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  239 

want?  There  is  nothing  for  you  here.  You  have  no  busi- 
ness on  the  drive  at  all.  Simpson,  drive  them  away  and  let 
no  more  of  them  through  the  gate." 

The  servants  had  to  obey  her.  And  she  would  stand 
watching  with  an  eye  like  the  eagle's,  whilst  the  groom  in 
clumsy  confusion  drove  the  lugubrious  persons  down  the 
drive,  as  if  they  were  rusty  fowls,  scuttling  before  him. 

But  they  learned  to  know,  from  the  lodge-keeper,  when 
Mr.  Crich  was  away,  and  they  timed  their  visits.  How  many 
times,  in  the  first  years,  would  Crowther  knock  softly  at  the 
door:   "Person  to  see  you,  sir." 

"What  name?" 

"Grocock,  sir." 

"What  do  they  want?"  The  question  was  half  impatient, 
half  gratified.     He  liked  hearing  appeals  to  his  charity. 

"About  a  child,  sir." 

"Show  them  into  the  library,  and  tell  them  they  shouldn't 
come  after  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning." 

"Why  do  you  get  up  from  dinner?  Send  them  off,"  his 
wife  would  say  abruptly. 

"Oh,  I  can't  do  that.  It's  no  trouble  just  to  hear  what 
they  have  to  say." 

"How  many  more  have  been  here  to-day?  Why  don't 
you  establish  open  house  for  them?  They  would  soon  oust  me 
and  the  children." 

"You  know,  dear,  it  doesn't  hurt  me  to  hear  what  they 
have  to  say.  And  if  they  really  are  in  trouble — well,  it  is  my 
duty  to  help  them  out  of  it." 

"It's  your  duty  to  invite  all  the  rats  in  the  world  to  gnaw 
at  your  bones." 

"Come,  Christiana,  it  isn't  like  that.  Don't  be  unchar- 
itable." 

But  she  suddenly  swept  out  of  the  room,  and  out  to  the 
study.  There  sat  the  meagre  charity-seekers,  looking  as  if 
they  were  at  the  doctor's. 

"Mr.  Crich  can't  see  you.  He  can't  see  you  at  this  hour. 
Do  you  think  he  is  your  property,  that  you  can  come  when- 
ever you  like?  You  must  go  away,  there  is  nothing  for  you 
here." 


240  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

The  poor  people  rose  in  confusion.  But  Mr.  Crich, 
pale  and  black-bearded  and  deprecating,  came  behind  her, 
saying: 

"Yes,  I  don't  like  you  coming  as  late  as  this.  I'll  hear 
any  of  you  in  the  morning  part  of  the  day,  but  I  can't  really 
do  with  you  after.  What's  amiss  then,  Gittens.  How  is  your 
Missis?" 

"Why,  she's  sunk  very  low,  Mester  Crich,  she's  a' most 
gone,  she  is — " 

Sometimes,  it  seemed  to  Mrs.  Crich  as  if  her  husband 
were  some  subtle  funeral  bird,  feeding  on  the  miseries  of  the 
people.  It  seemed  to  her  he  was  never  satisfied  unless  there 
was  some  sordid  tale  being  poured  out  to  him,  which  he  drank 
in  with  a  sort  of  mournful,  sympathetic  satisfaction.  He 
would  have  no  raison  d'ltre  if  there  were  no  lugubrious  miseries 
in  the  world,  as  an  undertaker  would  have  no  meaning  if 
there  were  no  funerals. 

Mrs.  Crich  recoiled  back  upon  herself,  she  recoiled  away 
from  this  world  of  creeping  democracy.  A  band  of  tight, 
baleful  exclusion  fastened  round  her  heart,  her  isolation  was 
fierce  and  hard,  her  antagonism  was  passive  but  terribly  pure, 
like  that  of  a  hawk  in  a  cage.  As  the  years  went  on,  she  lost 
more  and  more  count  of  the  world,  she  seemed  rapt  in  some 
glittering  abstraction,  almost  purely  unconscious.  She  would 
wander  about  the  house  and  about  the  surrounding  country, 
staring  keenly  and  seeing  nothing.  She  rarely  spoke,  she  had 
no  connection  with  the  world.  And  she  did  not  even  think. 
She  was  consumed  in  a  fierce  tension  of  opposition,  like  the 
negative  pole  of  a  magnet. 

And  she  bore  many  children.  For,  as  time  went  on,  she 
never  opposed  her  husband  in  word  or  deed.  She  took  no 
notice  of  him,  externally.  She  submitted  to  him,  let  him 
take  what  he  wanted  and  do  as  he  wanted  with  her.  She 
was  like  a  hawk  that  sullenly  submits  to  everything.  The 
relation  between  her  and  her  husband  was  wordless  and  un- 
known, but  it  was  deep,  awful,  a  relation  of  utter  interde- 
struction.  And  he,  who  triumphed  in  the  world,  he  became 
more  and  more  hollow  in  his  vitality,  the  vitality  was  bled 
from  within  him,  as  by  some  hemorrhage.      She  was  hulked 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  241 

like  a  hawk  in  a  cage,  but  her  heart  was  fierce  and  undimin- 
ished within  her,  though  her  mind  was  destroyed. 

So  to  the  last  he  would  go  to  her  and  hold  her  in  his  arms 
sometimes,  before  his  strength  was  all  gone.  The  terrible 
white,  destructive  light  that  burned  in  her  eyes  only  excited 
and  roused  him.  Till  he  was  bled  to  death,  and  then  he 
dreaded  her  more  than  anything.  But  he  always  said  to 
hinself,  how  happy  he  had  been,  how  he  had  loved  her  with 
a  pure  and  consuming  love  ever  since  he  had  known  her. 
And  he  thought  of  her  as  pure,  chaste;  the  white  flame  which 
was  known  to  him  alone,  the  flame  of  her  sex,  was  a  white 
flower  of  snow  to  his  mind.  She  was  a  wonderful  white 
snow-flower,  which  he  had  desired  infinitely.  And  now  he 
was  dying  with  all  his  ideas  and  interpretations  intact.  They 
would  only  collapse  when  the  breath  left  his  body.  Till 
then  they  would  be  pure  truths  for  him.  Only  death  would 
show  the  perfect  completeness  of  the  lie.  Till  death,  she  was 
his  white  snow-flower.  He  had  subdued  her,  and  her  subju- 
gation was  to  him  an  infinite  chastity  in  her,  a  virginity  which 
he  could  never  break,  and  which  dominated  him  as  by  a  spell. 

She  had  let  go  the  outer  world,  but  within  herself  she  was 
unbroken  and  unimpaired.  She  only  sat  in  her  room  like  a 
moping,  dishevelled  hawk,  motionless,  mindless.  Her  child- 
ren, for  whom  she  had  been  so  fierce  in  her  youth,  now  meant 
scarcely  anything  to  her.  She  had  lost  all  that,  she  was  quite 
by  herself.  Only  Gerald,  the  gleaming,  had  some  existence 
for  her.  But  of  late  years,  since  he  had  become  head  of  the 
business,  he,  too,  was  forgotten.  Whereas  the  father,  now 
he  was  dying,  turned  for  compassion  to  Gerald.  There  had 
always  been  opposition  between  the  two  of  them.  Gerald  had 
feared  and  despised  his  father,  and  to  a  great  extent  had 
avoided  him  all  through  boyhood  and  young  manhood.  And 
the  father  had  felt  very  often  a  real  dislike  of  his  eldest  son, 
which,  never  wanting  to  give  way  to,  he  had  refused  to  ac- 
knowledge. He  had  ignored  Gerald  as  much  as  possible, 
leaving  him  alone. 

Since,  however,  Gerald  had  come  home  and  assumed  re- 
sponsibility in  the  firm,  and  had  proved  such  a  wonderful 
director,  the  father,  tired  and  weary  of  all  outside  concerns, 


Ui  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

had  put  all  his  trust  of  these  things  in  his  son,  implicitly, 
leaving  everything  to  him,  and  assuming  a  rather  touching 
dependence  on  the  young  enemy.  This  immediately  roused 
a  poignant  pity  and  allegiance  in  Gerald's  heart,  always 
shadowed  by  contempt  and  by  unadmitted  enmity.  For 
Gerald  was  in  reaction  against  Charity;  and  yet  he  was 
dominated  by  it,  it  assumed  supremacy  in  the  inner  life,  and 
he  could  not  confute  it.  So  he  was  partly  subject  to  that 
which  his  father  stood  for,  but  he  was  in  reaction  against  it. 
Now  he  could  not  save  himself.  A  certain  pity  and  grief 
and  tenderness  for  his  father  overcame  him,  in  spite  of  the 
deeper,  more  sullen  hostility. 

The  father  won  shelter  from  Gerald  through  compassion. 
But  for  love  he  had  Winifred.  She  was  his  youngest  child, 
she  was  the  only  one  of  his  children  whom  he  had  ever  closely 
loved.  And  her  he  loved  with  all  the  great,  overweening, 
sheltering  love  of  a  dying  man.  He  wanted  to  shelter  her 
infinitely,  infinitely,  to  wrap  her  in  warmth  and  love  and 
shelter,  perfectly.  If  he  could  save  her  she  should  never 
know  one  pain,  one  grief,  one  hurt.  He  had  been  so  right 
all  his  life,  so  constant  in  his  kindness  and  his  goodness.  And 
this  was  his  last  passionate  righteousness,  his  love  for  the 
child  Winifred.  Some  things  troubled  him  yet.  The  world 
had  passed  away  from  him,  as  his  strength  ebbed.  There 
were  no  more  poor  and  injured  and  humble  to  protect  and 
succour.  These  were  all  lost  to  him.  There  were  no  more 
sons  and  daughters  to  trouble  him,  and  to  weigh  on  him  as 
an  unnatural  responsibility.  These,  too,  had  faded  out  of 
reality.  AH  these  things  had  fallen  out  of  his  hands,  and 
left  him  free. 

There  remained  the  covert  fear  and  horror  of  his  wife,  as 
she  sat  mindless  and  strange  in  her  room,  or  as  she  came 
forth  with  slow,  prowling  step,  her  head  bent  forward.  But 
this  he  put  away.  Even  his  life-long  righteousness,  however, 
would  not  quite  deliver  him  from  the  inner  horror.  Still,  he 
could  keep  it  sufficiently  at  bay.  It  would  never  break  forth 
openly.      Death  would  come  first.  * 

Then  there  was  Winifred!  If  only  he  could  be  sure  about 
her,  if  only  he  could  be  sure.     Since  the  death  of  Diana,  and 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  243 

the  development  of  his  illness,  his  craving  for  surety  with 
regard  to  Winifred  amounted  almost  to  obsession.  It  was  as 
if,  even  dying,  he  must  have  some  anxiety,  some  responsi- 
bility of  love,  of  Charity,  upon  his  heart. 

She  was  an  odd,  sensitive,  inflammable  child,  having  her 
father's  dark  hair  and  quiet  bearing,  but  being  quite  detached, 
momentaneous.  She  was  like  a  changeling  indeed,  as  if  her 
feelings  did  not  matter  to  her,  really.  She  often  seemed  to 
be  talking  and  playing  like  the  gayest  and  most  childish  of 
children,  she  was  full  of  the  warmest,  most  delightful  affection 
for  a  few  things — for  her  father,  and  for  her  animals  in  par- 
ticular. But  if  she  heard  that  her  beloved  kitten  Leo  had 
been  run  over  by  the  motor-car  she  put  her  head  on  one  side, 
and  replied,  with  a  faint  contraction  like  resentment  on  her 
face:  "Has  he?"  Then  she  took  no  more  notice.  She  only 
disliked  the  ^lervant  who  would  force  bad  news  on  her,  and 
wanted  her  to  be  sorry.  She  wished  not  to  know,  and  that 
seemed  her  chief  motive.  She  avoided  her  mother,  and  most 
of  the  members  of  her  family.  She  loved  her  Daddy,  because 
he  wanted  her  always  to  be  happy,  and  because  he  seemed  to 
become  young  again,  and  irresponsible  in  her  presence.  She 
liked  Gerald,  because  he  was  so  self-contained.  She  loved 
people  who  would  make  life  a  game  for  her.  She  had  an 
amazing  instinctive  critical  faculty,  and  was  a  pure  anarchist, 
a  pure  aristocrat  at  once.  For  she  accepted  her  equals  wher- 
ever she  found  them,  and  she  ignored  with  blithe  indifference 
her  inferiors,  whether  they  were  her  brothers  and  sisters,  or 
whether  they  were  wealthy  guests  of  the  house,  or  whether 
they  were  the  common  people  or  the  servants.  She  was 
quite  single  and  by  herself,  deriving  from  nobody.  It  was 
as  if  she  were  cut  off  from  all  purpose  or  continuity,  and 
existed  simply  moment  by  moment. 

The  father,  as  by  some  strange  final  illusion,  felt  as  if 
all  his  fate  depended  on  his  ensuring  to  Winifred  her  happi- 
ness. She  who  could  never  suffer,  because  she  never  formed 
vital  connections,  she  who  could  lose  the  dearest  things  of 
#her  life  and  be  just  the  same  the  next  day,  the  whole  memory 
dropped  out,  as  if  deliberately,  she  whose  will  was  so  strangely 
and  easily  free,  anarchistic,  almost  nihilistic,  who,  like  a  soul- 


244  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

less  bird  flits  on  its  own  will,  without  attachment  or  respon- 
sibility beyond  the  moment,  who  in  her  every  motion  snapped 
the  threads  of  serious  relationship  with  blithe,  free  hands, 
really  nihilistic,  because  never  troubled,  she  must  be  the  object 
of  her  father's  final  passionate  solicitude. 

When  Mr.  Crich  heard  that  Gudrun  Brangwen  might 
come  to  help  Winifred  with  her  drawing  and  modelling  he 
saw  a  road  to  salvation  for  his  child.  He  believed  that 
Winifred  had  talent,  he  had  seen  Gudrun,  he  knew  that  she 
was  an  exceptional  person.  He  could  give  Winifred  into  her 
hands  as  into  the  hands  of  a  right  being.  Here  was  a  direc- 
tion and  a  positive  force  to  be  lent  to  his  child,  he  need  not 
leave  her  directionless  and  defenceless.  If  he  could  but 
graft  the  girl  on  to  some  tree  of  utterance  before  he  died,  he 
would  have  fulfilled  his  responsibility.  And  here  it  could 
be  done.      He  did  not  hesitate  to  appeal  to  Gudrun. 

Meanwhile,  as  the  father  drifted  more  and  more  out  of 
life,  Gerald  experienced  more  and  more  a  sense  of  exposure. 
His  father  after  all  had  stood  for  the  living  world  to  him. 
Whilst  his  father  lived  Gerald  was  not  responsible  for  the 
world.  But  now  his  father  was  passing  away,  Gerald  found 
himself  left  exposed  and  unready  before  the  storm  of  living, 
like  the  mutinous  first  mate  of  a  ship  that  has  lost  his  cap- 
tain, and  who  sees  only  a  terrible  chaos  in  front  of  him.  He 
did  not  inherit  an  established  order  and  a  living  idea.  The 
whole  unifying  idea  of  mankind  seemed  to  be  dying  with  his 
father,  the  centralising  force  that  had  held  the  whole  together 
seemed  to  collapse  with  his  father,  the  parts  were  ready  to 
go  asunder  in  terrible  disintegration.  Gerald  was  as  if  left 
on  board  of  a  ship  that  was  going  asunder  beneath  his  feet, 
he  was  in  charge  of  a  vessel  whose  timbers  were  all  coming 
apart. 

He  knew  that  all  his  life  he  had  been  wrenching  at  the 
frame  of  life  to  break  it  apart.  And  now,  with  something 
of  the  terror  of  a  destructive  child,  he  saw  himself  on  the 
point  of  inheriting  his  own  destruction.  And  during  the  last 
months,  under  the  influence  of  death,  and  of  Birkin's  talk, 
and  of  Gudrun's  penetrating  being,  he  had  lost  entirely  that 
mechanical  certainty  that  had  been  his  triumph.     Sometimes 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  245 

spasms  of  hatred  came  over  him,  against  Birkin  and  Gudrun 
and  that  whole  set.  He  wanted  to  go  back  to  the  dullest 
conservatism,  to  the  most  stupid  of  conventional  people.  He 
wanted  to  revert  to  the  strictest  Toryism.  But  the  desire 
did  not  last  long  enough  to  carry  him  into  action. 

During  his  childhood  and  his  boyhood  he  had  wanted  a 
sort  of  savagedom.  The  days  of  Homer  were  his  ideal,  when 
a  man  was  chief  of  an  army  of  heroes,  or  spent  his  years  in 
wonderful  Odyssey.  He  hated  remorselessly  the  circumstances 
of  his  own  life,  so  much  that  he  never  really  saw  Beldover 
and  the  colliery  valley.  He  turned  his  face  entirely  away 
from  the  blackening  mining  region  that  stretched  away  on 
the  right  hand  of  Shortlands,  he  turned  entirely  to  the  coun- 
try and  the  woods- beyond  Willey  Water.  It  was  true  that 
the  panting  and  rattling  of  the  coal  mines  could  always  be 
heard  at  Shortlands.  But  from  his  earliest  childhood,  Gerald 
had  paid  no  heed  to  this.  He  had  ignored  the  whole  of  the 
industrial  sea  which  surged  in  coal-blackened  tides  against  the 
grounds  of  the  house.  The  world  was  really  a  wilderness 
where  one  hunted  and  swam  and  rode.  He  rebelled  against 
all  authority.     Life  was  a  condition  of  savage  freedom. 

Then  he  had  been  sent  away  to  school,  which  was  so  much 
death  to  him.  He  refused  to  go  to  Oxford,  choosing  a  Ger- 
man university.  He  had  spent  a  certain  time  at  Bonn,  at 
Berlin,  and  at  Frankfurt.  There,  a  curiosity  had  been 
aroused  in  his  mind.  He  wanted  to  see  and  to  know,  in  a 
curious  objective  fashion,  as  if  it  were  an  amusement  to  him. 
Tlu-n  he  must  try  war.  Then  he  must  travel  into  the  savage 
regions  that  had  so  attracted  him. 

The  result  was,  he  found  humanity  very  much  alike  every- 
where, and  to  a  mind  like  his,  curious  and  cold,  the  savage 
was  duller,  less  exciting  than  the  European.  So  he  took  hold 
of  all  kinds  of  sociological  ideas,  and  ideas  of  reform.  But 
they  never  went  more  than  skin-deep,  they  were  never  more 
than  a  mental  amusement.  Their  interest  lay  chiefly  in  the 
reaction  against  the  positive  order,  the  destructive  reaction. 

He  discovered  at  last  a  real  adventure  in  the  coal-mines. 
His  father  asked  him  to  help  in  the  firm.  Gerald  had  been 
educated  in  the  science  of  mining,  and  it  had  never  interested 


246  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

him.  Now,  suddenly,  with  a  sort  of  exultation,  he  laid  hold 
of  the  world. 

There  was  impressed  photographically  on  his  consciousness 
the  great  industry.  Suddenly,  it  was  real,  he  was  part  of  it. 
Down  the  valley  ran  the  colliery  railway,  linking  mine  with 
mine.  Down  the  railway  ran  the  trains,  short  trains  of 
heavily  laden  trucks,  long  trains  of  empty  wagons,  each  one 
bearing  in  big  white  letters  the  initials: 

"C.  B.  &  Co." 

These  white  letters  on  all  the  wagons  he  had  seen  since 
his  first  childhood,  and  it  was  as  if  he  had  never  seen  them, 
they  were  so  familiar,  and  so  ignored.  Now  at  last  he  saw 
his  own  name  written  on  the  wall.  Now  he  had  a  vision  of 
power. 

So  many  wagons,  bearing  his  initial,  running  all  over  the 
country.  He  saw  them  as  he  entered  London  in  the  train, 
he  saw  them  at  Dover.  So  far  his  power  ramified.  He 
looked  at  Beldover,  at  Selby,  at  Whatmore,  at  Lethley  Bank, 
the  great  colliery  villages  which  depended  entirely  on  his 
mines.  They  were  hideous  and  sordid,  during  his  childhood 
they  had  been  sores  in  his  consciousness.  And  now  he  saw 
them  with  pride.  Four  raw  new  towns,  and  many  ugly  in- 
dustrial hamlets  were  crowded  under  his  dependence.  He 
saw  the  stream  of  miners  flowing  along  the  causeways  from 
the  mines  at  the  end  of  the  afternoon,  thousands  of  blackened, 
slightly  distorted  human  beings  with  red  mouths,  all  moving 
subjugate  to  his  will.  He  pushed  slowly  in  his  motor-car 
through  the  little  market-top  on  Friday  nights  in  Beldover, 
through  a  solid  mass  of  human  beings  that  were  making  their 
purchases  and  doing  their  weekly  spending.  They  were  all 
subordinate  to  him.  They  were  ugly  and  uncouth,  but  they 
were  his  instruments.  He  was  the  God  of  the  machine. 
They  made  way  for  his  motor-car  automatically,  slowly. 

He  did  not  care  whether  they  made  way  with  alacrity,  or 
grudgingly.  He  did  not  care  what  they  thought  of  him. 
His  vision  had  suddenly  crystallised.  Suddenly  he  had  con- 
ceived the  pure  instrumentality  of  mankind.  There  had  been 
so  much  humanitarianism,  so  much  talk  of  sufferings  and  feel- 
ings.     It  was  ridiculous.      The  sufferings  and  feelings  of  in- 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  247 

dividual*  did  not  matter  in  the  least.  They  were  mere  con- 
ditions, like  the  weather.  What  mattered  was  the  pure 
instrumentality  of  the  individual.  As  a  man  as  of  a  knife: 
does  it  cut  well?     Nothing  else  mattered. 

Everything  in  the  world  has  its  function,  and  is  good  or 
not  good  in  so  far  as  it  fulfils  this  function  more  or  less  per- 
fectly. Was  a  miner  a  good  miner?  Then  he  was  complete. 
Was  a  manager  a  good  manager?  That  was  enough.  Gerald 
himself,  who  was  responsible  for  all  this  industry,  was  he  a 
good  director?  If  he  were,  he  had  fulfilled  his  life.  The 
rest  was  by-play. 

The  mines  were  there,  they  were  old.  They  were  giving 
out,  it  did  not  pay  to  work  the  seams.  There  was  talk  of 
closing  down  two  of  them.  It  was  at  this  point  that  Gerald 
arrived  on  the  scene. 

He  looked  around.  There  lay  the  mines.  They  were 
old,  obsolete.  They  were  like  old  lions,  no  more  good.  He 
looked  again.  Pah!  the  mines  were  nothing  but  the  clumsy 
efforts  of  impure  minds.  There  they  lay,  abortions  of  a 
half-trained  mind.  Let  the  idea  of  them  be  swept  away. 
He  cleared  his  brains  of  them,  and  thought  only  of  the  coal 
in  the  under  earth.     How  much  was  there? 

There  was  plenty  of  coal.  The  old  workings  could  not 
get  at  it,  that  was  all.  Then  break  the  neck  of  the  old  work- 
ings. The  coal  lay  there  in  its  seams,  even  though  the  seams 
were  thin.  There  it  lay,  inert  matter,  as  it  had  always  lain, 
since  the  beginning  of  time,  subject  to  the  will  of  man.  The 
will  of  man  was  the  determining  factor.  Man  was  the  arch- 
god  of  earth.  His  mind  was  obedient  to  serve  his  will.  Man's 
will  was  the  absolute,  the  only  absolute. 

And  it  was  his  will  to  subjugate  Matter  to  his  own  ends. 
The  subjugation  itself  was  the  point,  the  fight  was  the  be-all, 
the  fruits  of  victory  were  mere  results.  It  was  not  for  the 
sake  of  money  that  Gerald  took  over  the  mines.  He  did  not 
care  about  money,  fundamentally.  He  was  neither  ostenta- 
tious nor  luxurious,  neither  did  he  care  about  social  position, 
not  finally.  What  he  wanted  was  the  pure  fulfilment  of  his 
own  will  in  the  struggle  with  the  natural  conditions.  His 
will  was  now,  to  take  the  coal  out  of  the  earth,  profitably. 


248  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

The  profit  was  merely  the  condition  of  victory,  but  the  vic- 
tory itself  lay  in  the  feat  achieved.  He  vibrated  with  zest 
before  the  challenge.  Every  day  he  was  in  the  mines,  exam- 
ining, testing,  he  consulted  experts,  he  gradually  gathered  the 
whole  situation  into  his  mind,  as  a  general  grasps  the  plan 
of  his  campaign. 

Then  there  was  need  for  a  complete  break.  The  mines 
were  run  on  an  old  system,  an  obsolete  idea.  The  initial  idea 
had  been,  to  obtain  as  much  money  from  the  earth  as  would 
make  the  owners  comfortably  rich,  would  allow  the  workmen 
sufficient  wages  and  good  conditions,  and  would  increase  the 
wealth  of  the  country  altogether.  Gerald's  father,  following 
in  the  second  generation,  having  a  sufficient  fortune,  had 
thought  only  of  the  men.  The  mines,  for  him,  were  pri- 
marily great  fields  to  produce  bread  and  plenty  for  all  the 
hundreds  of  human  beings  gathered  about  them.  He  had 
lived  and  striven  with  his  fellow  owners  to  benefit  the  men 
every  time.  And  the  men  had  been  benefited  in  their  fash- 
ion. There  were  few  poor,  and  few  needy.  All  was  plenty, 
because  the  mines  were  good  and  easy  to  work.  And  the 
miners,  in  those  days,  finding  themselves  richer  than  they 
might  have  expected,  felt  glad  and  triumphant.  They  thought 
themselves  well  off,  they  congratulated  themselves  on  their 
good-fortune,  they  remembered  how  their  fathers  had  starved 
and  suffered,  and  they  felt  that  better  times  had  come.  They 
were  grateful  to  those  others,  the  pioneers,  the  new  owners, 
who  had  opened  out  the  pits,  and  let  forth  this  stream  of 
plenty. 

But  man  is  never  satisfied,  and  so  the  miners,  from  grati- 
tude to  their  owners,  passed  on  to  murmuring.  Their  suffi- 
ciency decreased  with  knowledge,  they  wanted  more.  Why 
should  the  master  be  so  out  of  all  proportion  rich? 

There  was  a  crisis  when  Gerald  was  a  boy,  when  the  Mas- 
ters' Federation  closed  down  the  mines  because  the  men 
would  not  accept  a  reduction.  This  lock-out  had  forced 
home  the  new  conditions  to  Thomas  Crich.  Belonging  to  the 
Federation,  he  had  been  compelled  by  his  honour  to  close  the 
pits  against  his  men.  He,  the  father,  the  patriarch,  was 
forced  to  deny  the  means  of  life  to  his  sons,  his  people.     He, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  249 

the  rich  man  who  would  hardly  enter  heaven  because  of  his 
possessions,  must  now  turn  upon  the  poor,  upon  those  who 
were  nearer  Christ  than  himself,  those  who  were  humble  and 
despised  and  closer  to  perfection,  those  who  were  manly  and 
noble  in  their  labours,  and  must  say  to  them:  "Ye  shall 
neither  labour  nor  eat  bread." 

It  was  this  recognition  of  the  state  of  war  which  really 
broke  his  heart.  He  wanted  his  industry  to  be  run  on  love. 
Oh,  he  wanted  love  to  be  the  directing  power  even  of  the 
mines.  And  now,  from  under  the  cloak  of  love,  the  sword 
was  cynically  drawn,  the  sword  of  mechanical  necessity. 

This  really  broke  his  heart.  He  must  have  the  illusion 
and  now  the  illusion  was  destroyed.  The  men  were  not 
against  him,  but  they  were  against  the  masters.  It  was  war, 
and  willy  nilly  he  found  himself  on  the  wrong  side,  in  his 
own  conscience.  Seething  masses  of  miners  met  daily,  carried 
away  by  a  new  religious  impulse.  The  idea  flew  through  them : 
"All  men  are  equal  on  earth,"  and  they  would  carry  the  idea 
to  its  material  fulfilment.  After  all,  is  it  not  the  teaching  of 
Christ?  And  what  is  an  idea,  if  not  the  germ  of  action  in 
the  material  world.  "All  men  are  equal  in  spirit,  they  are 
all  sons  of  God.  Whence  then  this  obvious  disquality?"  It 
was  a  religious  creed  pushed  to  its  material  conclusion. 
Thomas  Crich  at  least  had  no  answer.  He  could  but  admit, 
according  to  his  sincere  tenets,  that  the  disquality  was  wrong. 
But  he  could  not  give  up  his  goods,  which  were  the  stuff  of 
disquality.  So  the  men  would  fight  for  their  rights.  The 
last  impulses  of  the  last  religious  passion  left  on  earth,  the 
passion  for  equality,  inspired  them. 

Seething  mobs  of  men  marched  about,  their  faces  lighted 
up  as  for  holy  war,  with  a  smoke  of  cupidity.  How  disen- 
tangle the  passion  for  equality  from  the  passion  of  cupidity, 
when  begins  the  fight  for  equality  of  possessions?  But  the 
God  was  the  machine.  Each  man  claimed  equality  in  the 
Godhead  of  the  great  productive  machine.  Every  man 
equally  was  part  of  this  Godhead.  But  somehow,  some- 
where, Thomas  Crich  knew  this  was  false.  When  the  ma- 
chine is  the  Godhead,  and  production  or  work  is  worship, 
then  the  most  mechanical  mind  is  purest  and  highest,  the 


250  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

representative  of  God  on  earth. — And  the  rest  are  subordi- 
nate, each  according  to  his  degree. 

Riots  broke  out,  Whatmore  pit-head  was  in  flames.  This 
was  the  pit  furthest  in  the  country,  near  the  woods.  Soldiers 
came.  From  the  windows  of  Shortlands,  on  that  fatal  day, 
could  be  seen  the  flare  of  fire  in  the  sky  not  far  off,  and  now 
the  little  colliery  train,  with  the  workmen's  carriages  which 
were  used  to  convey  the  miners  to  the  distant  Whatmore, 
was  crossing  the  valley  full  of  soldiers,  full  of  red-coats.  Then 
there  was  the  far-off  sound  of  firing,  then  the  later  news  that 
the  mob  was  dispersed,  one  man  was  shot  dead,  the  fire  was 
put  out. 

Gerald,  who  was  a  boy,  was  filled  with  the  wildest  excite- 
ment and  delight.  He  longed  to  go  with  the  soldiers  to  shoot 
the  men.  But  he  was  not  allowed  to  go  out  of  the  lodge 
gates.  At  the  gates  were  stationed  sentries  with  guns.  Gerald 
stood  near  them  in  delight,  whilst  gangs  of  derisive  miners 
strolled  up  and  down  the  lanes,  calling  and  jeering: 

"Now  then,  three  ha'porth  o'  coppers,  let's  see  thee  shoot 
thy  gun."  Insults  were  chalked  on  the  walls  and  the  fences, 
the  servants  left. 

And  all  this  while  Thomas  Crich  was  breaking  his  heart, 
and  giving  away  hundreds  of  pounds  in  charity.  Everywhere 
there  was  free  food,  a  surfeit  of  free  food.  Anybody  could 
have  bread  for  asking,  and  a  loaf  cost  only  three-ha'pence. 
Every  day  there  was  a  free  tea  somewhere,  the  children  had 
never  had  so  many  treats  in  their  lives.  On  Friday  afternoon 
great  basketfuls  of  buns  and  cakes  were  taken  into  the  schools, 
and  great  pitchers  of  milk,  the  school-children  had  what  they 
wanted.     They  were  sick  with  eating  too  much  cake  and  milk. 

And  then  it  came  to  an  end,  and  the  men  went  back  to 
work.  But  it  was  never  the  same  as  before.  There  was  a 
new  situation  created,  a  new  idea  reigned.  Even  in  the 
machine,  there  should  be  equality.  No  part  should  be  sub- 
ordinate to  any  other  part;  all  should  be  equal.  The  instinct 
for  chaos  had  entered.  Mystic  equality  lies  in  being,  not  in 
having  or  in  doing,  which  are  processes.  In  function  and 
process,  one  man,  one  part,  must  of  necessity  be  subordinate 
to  another.      It  is  a  condition  of  being.      But  the  desire  for 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  251 

chaos  had  risen,  and  the  idea  of  mechanical  equality  was  the 
weapon  of  disruption  which  should  execute  the  will  of  man, 
the  will  for  chaos. 

Gerald  was  a  boy  at  the  time  of  the  strike,  but  he  longed 
to  be  a  man,  to  fight  the  colliers.  The  father,  however,  was 
trapped  between  two  half-truths,  and  broken.  He  wanted 
to  be  a  pure  Christian,  one  and  equal  with  all  men.  He 
even  wanted  to  give  away  all  he  had,  to  the  poor. — Yet  he 
was  a  great  promoter  of  industry,  and  he  knew  perfectly  that 
he  must  keep  his  goods  and  keep  his  authority.  This  was 
as  divine  a  necessity  in  him,  as  the  need  to  give  away  all  he 
possessed — more  divine,  even,  since  this  was  the  necessity  he 
acted  upon.  Yet  because  he  did  not  act  on  the  other  ideal, 
it  dominated  him,  he  was  dying  of  chagrin  because  he  must 
forfeit  it.  He  wanted  to  be  a  father  of  loving  kindness  and 
sacrificial  benevolence.  The  colliers  shouted  to  him  about 
his  thousands  a  year.     They  would  not  be  deceived. 

When  Gerald  grew  up  in  the  ways  of  the  world,  he  shifted 
the  position.  He  did  not  care  about  the  equality.  The  whole 
Christian  attitude  of  love  and  self-sacrifice  was  old  hat.  He 
knew  that  position  and  authority  were  the  right  thing  in  the 
world,  and  it  was  useless  to  cant  about  it.  They  were  the 
right  thing,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  were  functionally 
necessary.  They  were  not  the  be-all  and  the  end-all.  It 
was  like  being  part  of  a  machine.  He  himself  happened  to 
be  a  controlling,  central  part,  the  masses  of  men  were  the 
parts  variously  controlled.  This  was  merely  as  it  happened. 
As  well  get  excited  because  a  central  hub  drives  a  hundred 
outer  wheels — or  because  the  whole  universe  wheels  round  the 
sun.  After  all,  it  would  be  mere  silliness  to  say  that  the 
moon  and  the  earth  and  Saturn  and  Jupiter  and  Venus  have 
just  as  much  right  to  be  the  centre  of  the  universe,  each  of 
them  separately,  as  the  sun.  Such  an  assertion  is  made 
merely  in  the  desire  of  chaos. 

Without  bothering  to  think  to  a  conclusion,  Gerald  jumped 
to  a  conclusion.  He  abandoned  the  whole  democratic-equal- 
ity problem  as  a  problem  of  silliness.  What  mattered  was 
the  great  social  productive  machine.  Let  that  work  per- 
fectly, let  it  produce  a  sufficiency  of  everything,  let  every 


252  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

man  be  given  a  rational  portion,  greater  or  less  according  to 
his  functional  degree  or  magnitude,  and  then,  provision 
made,  let  the  devil  supervene,  let  every  man  look  after  his 
own  amusements  and  appetites,  so  long  as  he  interfered  with 
nobody. 

So  Gerald  set  himself  to  work,  to  put  the  great  industry 
in  order.  In  his  travels,  and  in  his  accompanying  readings, 
he  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  essential  secret  of  life 
was  harmony.  He  did  not  define  to  himself  at  all  clearly 
what  harmony  was.  The  word  pleased  him,  he  felt  he  had 
come  to  his  own  conclusions.  And  he  proceeded  to  put  his 
philosophy  into  practice  by  forcing  order  into  the  established 
world,  translating  the  mystic  word  harmony  into  the  prac- 
tical word  order. 

Immediately  he  saw  the  firm,  he  realised  what  he  could 
do.  He  had  a  fight  to  fight  with  Matter,  with  the  earth  and 
the  coal  it  enclosed.  This  was  the  sole  idea,  to  turn  upon 
the  inanimate  matter  of  the  underground,  and  reduce  it  to 
his  will.  And  for  this  fight  with  matter,  one  must  have  per- 
fect instruments  in  perfect  organisation,  a  mechanism  so 
subtle  and  harmonious  in  its  workings  that  it  represents  the 
single  mind  of  man,  and  by  its  relentless  repetition  of  given 
movement,  will  accomplish  a  purpose  irresistibly,  inhumanly. 
It  was  this  inhuman  principle  in  the  mechanism  he  wanted 
to  construct  that  inspired  Gerald  with  an  almost  religious 
exaltation.  He,  the  man,  could  interpose  a  perfect,  change- 
less, godlike  medium  between  himself  and  the  Matter  he  had 
to  subjugate.  There  were  two  opposites,  his  will  and  the 
resistent  Matter  of  the  earth.  And  between  these  he  could 
establish  the  very  expression  of  his  will,  the  incarnation  of 
his  power,  a  great  and  perfect  machine,  a  system,  an  activity 
of  pure  order,  pure  mechanical  repetition,  repetition  ad  in- 
finitum, hence  eternal  and  infinite.  He  found  his  eternal  and 
his  infinite  in  the  pure  machine-principle  of  perfect  co-ordina- 
tion into  one  pure,  complex  infinitely  repeated  motion,  like 
the  spinning  of  a  wheel;  but  a  productive  spinning,  as  the 
revolving  of  the  universe  may  be  called  a  productive  spin- 
ning, a  productive  repetition  through  eternity,  to  infinity. 
And  this  is  the  God-motion,   this  productive  repetition  ad 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  253 

infinitum.  And  Gerald  was  the  God  of  the  machine,  Deus 
ex  Machina.  And  the  whole  productive  will  of  man  was  the 
Godhead. 

He  had  his  life-work  now,  to  extend  over  the  earth  a  great 
and  perfect  system  in  which  the  will  of  man  ran  smooth  and 
unthwarted,  timeless,  a  Godhead  in  process.  He  had  to 
begin  with  the  mines.  The  terms  were  given:  first  the  re- 
sistant Matter  of  the  underground;  then  the  instruments  of 
its  subjugation,  instruments  human  and  metallic;  and  finally 
his  own  pure  will,  his  own  mind.  It  would  need  a  marvellous 
adjustment  of  myriad  instruments,  human,  animal,  metallic, 
kinetic,  dynamic,  a  marvellous  casting  of  myriad  tiny  wholes 
into  one  great  perfect  entirety.  And  then,  in  this  case  there 
was  perfection  attained,  the  will  of  the  highest  was  perfectly 
fulfilled,  the  will  of  mankind  was  perfectly  enacted;  for  was 
not  mankind  mystically  contradistinguished  against  inanimate 
Matter,  was  not  the  history  of  mankind  just  the  history  of 
the  conquest  of  the  one  by  the  other? 

The  miners  were  overreached.  While  they  were  still  in 
the  toils  of  divine  equality  of  man,  Gerald  had  passed  on, 
granted  essentially  their  case,  and  proceeded  in  his  quality  of 
human  being  to  fulfill  the  will  of  mankind  as  a  whole.  He 
merely  represented  the  miners  in  a  higher  sense  when  he  per- 
ceived that  the  only  way  to  fulfil  perfectly  the  will  of  man 
was  to  establish  the  perfect,  inhuman  machine.  But  he  rep- 
resented them  very  essentially,  they  were  far  behind,  out  of 
date,  squabbling  for  their  material  equality.  The  desire  had 
already  transmuted  into  this  new  and  greater  desire,  for  a 
perfect  intervening  mechanism  between  man  and  Matter,  the 
desire  to  translate  the  Godhead  into  pure  mechanism. 

As  soon  as  Gerald  entered  the  firm,  the  convulsion  of 
death  ran  through  the  old  system.  He  had  all  his  life  been 
tortured  by  a  furious  and  destructive  demon,  which  possessed 
him  sometimes  like  an  insanity.  This  temper  now  entered 
like  a  virus  into  the  firm,  and  there  were  cruel  eruptions. 
Terrible  and  inhuman  were  his  examinations  into  every  detail; 
there  was  no  privacy  he  would  spare,  no  old  sentiment  but 
he  would  turn  it  over.  The  old  grey  managers,  the  old  grey 
clerks,  the  doddering  old  pensioners,  he  looked  at  them,  and 


254  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

removed  them  as  so  much  lumber.  The  whole  concern 
seemed  like  a  hospital  of  invalid  employees.  He  had  no 
emotional  qualms.  He  arranged  what  pensions  were  neces- 
sary, he  looked  for  efficient  substitutes,  and  when  these  were 
found,  he  substituted  them  for  the  old  hands. 

"I've  a  pitiful  letter  here  from  Letherinton,"  his  father 
would  say,  in  a  tone  of  deprecation  and  appeal.  "Don't  you 
think  the  poor  fellow  might  keep  on  a  little  longer.  I  always 
fancied  he  did  very  well." 

"I've  got  a  man  in  his  place  now,  father.  He'll  be  happier 
out  of  it,  believe  me.  You  think  his  allowance  is  plenty, 
don't  you?" 

"It  is  not  the  allowance  that  he  wants,  poor  man.  He 
feels  it  very  much,  that  he  is  superannuated.  Says  he  thought 
he  had  twenty  more  years  of  work  in  him  yet." 

"Not  of  this  kind  of  work  I  want.  He  doesn't  under- 
stand." 

The  father  sighed.  He  wanted  not  to  know  any  more. 
He  believed  the  pits  would  have  to  be  overhauled  if  they 
were  to  go  on  working.  And  after  all,  it  would  be  worse  in 
the  long  run  for  everybody,  if  they  must  close  down.  So  he 
could  make  no  answer  to  the  appeals  of  his  old  and  trusty 
servants,  he  could  only  repeat  "Gerald  says." 

So  the  father  drew  more  and  more  out  of  the  light.  The 
whole  frame  of  the  real  life  was  broken  for  him.  He  had 
been  right  according  to  his  lights.  And  his  lights  had  been 
those  of  the  great  religion.  Yet  they  seemed  to  have  become 
obsolete,  to  be  superseded  in  the  world.  He  could  not  un- 
derstand. He  only  withdrew  with  his  lights  into  an  inner 
room,  into  the  silence.  The  beautiful  candles  of  belief,  that 
would  not  do  to  light  the  world  any  more,  they  would  still 
burn  sweetly  and  sufficiently  in  the  inner  room  of  his  soul, 
and  in  the  silence  of  his  retirement. 

Gerald  rushed  into  the  reform  of  the  firm,  beginning  with 
the  office.  It  was  needful  to  economise  severely,  to  make 
possible  the  great  alterations  he  must  introduce. 

"What  are  these  widows'  coals?"  he  asked. 

"We  have  always  allowed  all  widows  of  men  who  worked 
for  the  firm  a  load  of  coals  every  three  months." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  255 

"They  must  pay  cost  price  henceforward.  The  firm  is  not 
a  charity  institution,  as  everybody  seems  to  think." 

Widows,  these  stock  figures  of  sentimental  humanitarian- 
ism,  he  felt  a  dislike  at  the  thought  of  them.  They  were 
almost  repulsive.  Why  were  they  not  immolated  on  the  pyre 
of  the  husband,  like  the  sati  in  India?  At  any  rate,  let  them 
pay  the  cost  of  their  coals. 

In  a  thousand  ways  he  cut  down  the  expenditure,  in  ways 
so  fine  as  to  be  hardly  noticeable  to  the  men.  The  miners 
must  pay  for  the  cartage  of  their  coals,  heavy  cartage,  too; 
they  must  pay  for  their  tools,  for  the  sharpening,  for  the  care 
of  lamps,  for  the  many  trifling  things  that  made  the  bill  of 
charges  against  every  man  mount  up  to  a  shilling  or  so  in  a 
week.  It  was  not  grasped  very  definitely  by  the  miners, 
though  they  were  sore  enough.  But  it  saved  hundreds  of 
pounds  every  week  for  the  firm. 

Gradually  Gerald  got  hold  of  everything.  And  then  began 
the  great  reform.  Expert  engineers  were  introduced  in  every 
department.  An  enormous  electric  plant  was  installed,  both 
for  lighting  and  for  haulage  underground,  and  for  power. 
The  electricity  was  carried  in  every  mine.  New  machinery 
was  brought  from  America,  such  as  the  miners  had  never 
seen  before,  great  iron  men,  as  the  cutting  machines  were 
called,  and  unusual  appliances.  The  working  of  the  pits 
was  thoroughly  changed,  all  the  control  was  taken  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  miners,  the  butty  system  was  abolished.  Every- 
thing was  run  on  the  most  accurate  and  delicate  scientific 
method,  educated  and  expert  men  were  in  control  everywhere, 
the  miners  were  reduced  to  mere  mechanical  instruments. 
They  had  to  work  hard,  much  harder  than  before,  the  work 
was  terrible  and  heart-breaking  in  its  mindlessness. 

But  they  submitted  to  it  all.  The  joy  went  out  of  their 
lives,  the  hope  seemed  to  perish  as  they  became  more  and 
more  mechanised.  And  yet  they  accepted  the  new  condi- 
tions. They  even  got  a  further  satisfaction  out  of  them. 
At  first  they  hated  Gerald  Crich,  they  swore  to  do  something 
to  him,  to  murder  him.  But  as  time  went  on,  they  accepted 
everything  with  some  fatal  satisfaction.  Gerald  was  their 
high  priest,  he  represented  the  religion  they  really  felt.     His 


256  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

father  was  forgotten  already.  There  was  a  new  world,  a  new 
order,  strict,  terrible,  inhuman,  but  satisfying  in  its  very  de- 
structiveness.  The  men  were  satisfied  to  belong  to  the  great 
and  wonderful  machine,  even  whilst  it  destroyed  them.  It 
was  what  they  wanted.  It  was  the  highest  that  man  had 
produced,  the  most  wonderful  and  superhuman.  They  were 
exalted  by  belonging  to  this  great  and  superhuman  system 
which  was  beyond  feeling  or  reason,  something  really  godlike. 
Their  hearts  died  within  them,  but  their  souls  were  satisfied. 
It  was  what  they  wanted.  Otherwise  Gerald  could  never 
have  done  what  he  did.  He  was  just  ahead  of  them  in  giv- 
ing them  what  they  wanted,  this  participation  in  a  great  and 
perfect  system  that  subjected  life  to  pure  mathematical  prin- 
ciples. This  was  a  sort  of  freedom,  the  sort  they  really 
wanted.  It  was  the  first  great  step  in  undoing,  the  first  great 
phase  of  chaos,  the  substitution  of  the  mechanical  principle 
for  the  organic,  the  destruction  of  the  organic  purpose,  the 
organic  unity,  and  the  subordination  of  every  organic  unit  to 
the  great  mechanical  purpose.  It  was  pure  organic  disinte- 
gration and  pure  mechanical  organisation.  This  is  the  first 
and  finest  state  of  chaos. 

Gerald  was  satisfied.  He  knew  the  colliers  said  they  hated 
him.  But  he  had  long  ceased  to  hate  them.  When  they 
streamed  past  him  at  evening,  their  heavy  boots  slurring  on 
the  pavement  wearily,  their  shoulders  slightly  distorted,  they 
took  no  notice  of  him,  they  gave  him  no  greeting  whatever, 
they  passed  in  a  grey-black  stream  of  unemotional  acceptance. 
They  were  not  important  to  him,  save  as  instruments,  nor  he 
to  them,  save  as  a  supreme  instrument  of  control.  As  miners 
they  had  their  being,  he  had  his  being  as  director.  He  ad- 
mired their  qualities.  But  as  men,  personalities,  they  were 
just  accidents,  sporadic  little  unimportant  phenomena. — And 
tacitly,  the  men  agreed  to  this.  For  Gerald  agreed  to  it  in 
himself. 

He  had  succeeded.  He  had  converted  the  industry  into 
a  new  and  terrible  purity.  There  was  a  greater  output  of 
coal  than  ever,  the  wonderful  and  delicate  system  ran  almost 
perfectly.  He  had  a  set  of  really  clever  engineers,  both  min- 
ing and  electrical,  and  they  did  not  cost  much.      A  highly 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  257 

educated  man  cost  very  little  more  than  a  workman.  His 
managers,  who  were  all  rare  men,  were  no  more  expensive  than 
the  old  bungling  fools  of  his  father's  days,  who  were  merely 
colliers  promoted.  His  chief  manager,  who  had  twelve  hun- 
dred a  year,  saved  the  firm  at  least  five  thousand.  The 
whole  system  was  now  so  perfect  that  Gerald  was  hardly 
necessary  any  more. 

It  was  so  perfect  that  sometimes  a  strange  fear  came  over 
him,  and  he  did  not  know  what  to  do.  He  went  on  for  some 
years  in  a  sort  of  trance  of  activity.  What  he  was  doing 
seemed  supreme,  he  was  almost  like  a  divinity.  He  was  a 
pure  and  exalted  activity. 

But  now  he  had  succeeded — he  had  finally  succeeded.  And 
once  or  twice  lately,  when  he  was  alone  in  the  evening  and  had 
nothing  to  do,  he  had  suddenly  stood  up  in  terror,  not  know- 
ing what  he  was.  And  he  went  to  the  mirror  and  looked 
long  and  closely  at  his  own  face,  at  his  own  eyes,  seeking  for 
something.  He  was  afraid,  in  mortal  dry  fear,  but  he  knew 
not  what  of.  He  looked  at  his  own  face.  There  it  was, 
shapely  and  healthy,  and  the  same  as  ever,  yet  somehow,  it 
was  not  real,  it  was  a  mask.  He  dared  not  touch  it,  for  fear 
it  should  prove  to  be  only  a  composition  mask.  His  eyes 
were  blue  and  keen  as  ever,  and  as  firm  in  their  look.'  Yet 
he  was  not  sure  that  they  were  not  blue  false  bubbles  that 
would  burst  in  a  moment  and  leave  clear  annihilation.  He 
could  see  the  darkness  in  them,  as  if  they  were  only  bubbles 
of  darkness.  He  was  afraid  that  one  day  he  would  break 
down  and  be  a  purely  meaningless  bubble  lapping  round  a 
darkness. 

But  his  will  yet  held  good,  he  was  able  to  go  away  and 
read,  and  think  about  things.  He  liked  to  read  books  about 
the  primitive  man,  books  of  anthropology,  and  also  works  of 
speculative  philosophy.  His  mind  was  very  active.  But  it 
was  like  a  bubble  floating  in  the  darkness.  At  any  moment 
it  might  burst  and  leave  him  in  chaos.  He  would  not  die. 
He  knew  that.  He  would  go  on  living,  but  the  meaning 
would  have  collapsed  out  of  him,  his  divine  reason  would  be 
gone.  In  a  strangely  indifferent,  sterile  way,  he  was  fright- 
ened.     But  he  could  not  react  even  to  the  fear.      It  was  as 


258  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

if  his  centres  of  feeling  were  drying  up.  He  remained  calm, 
calculative  and  healthy,  and  quite  freely  deliberate,  even 
whilst  he  felt,  with  faint,  small  but  final  sterile  horror,  that 
his  mystic  reason  was  breaking,  giving  way  now,  at  this  crisis. 

And  it  was  a  strain.  He  knew  there  was  no  equilibrium. 
He  would  have  to  go  in  some  direction,  shortly,  to  find  relief. 
Only  Birkin  kept  the  fear  definitely  off  him,  saved  him  his 
quick  sufficiency  in  life,  by  the  odd  mobility  and  changeable- 
ness  which  seemed  to  contain  the  quintessence  of  faith.  But 
then  Gerald  must  always  come  away  from  Birkin,  as  from  a 
church  service,  back  to  the  outside  real  world  of  work  and 
life.  There  it  was,  it  did  not  alter,  and  words  were  futilities. 
He  had  to  keep  himself  in  reckoning  with  the  world  of  work 
and  material  life.  And  it  became  more  and  more  difficult, 
such  a  strange  pressure  was  upon  him,  as  if  the  very  middle 
of  him  were  a  vacuum,  and  outside  were  an  awful  tension. 

He  had  found  his  most  satisfactory  relief  in  women.  After 
a  debauch  with  some  desperate  woman,  he  went  on  quite 
easy  and  forgetful.  The  devil  of  it  was,  it  was  so  hard  to 
keep  up  his  interest  in  women  nowadays.  He  didn't  care 
about  them  any  more.  A  Pussum  was  all  right  in  her  way, 
but  she  was  an  exceptional  case,  and  even  she  mattered  ex- 
tremely little.  No,  women,  in  that  sense,  were  useless  to 
him  any  more.  He  felt  that  his  mind  needed  acute  stimula- 
tion, before  he  could  be  physically  roused. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

GUDRUN  knew  that  it  was  a  critical  thing  for  her  to 
go  to  Shortlands.  She  knew  it  was  equivalent  to 
accepting  Gerald  Crich  as  a  lover.  And  though  she 
hung  back,  disliking  the  condition,  yet  she  knew  she  would 
go  on.  She  equivocated.  She  said  to  herself,  in  torment 
recalling  the  blow  and  the  kiss,  "after  all,  what  is  it?  What 
is  a  kiss?  What  even  is  a  blow?  It  is  an  instant,  vanished 
at  once.  I  can  go  to  Shortlands  just  for  a  time,  before  I  go 
away,  if  only  to  see  what  it  is  like."  For  she  had  an  insatiable 
curiosity  to  see  and  to  know  everything. 

She  also  wanted  to  know  what  Winifred  was  really  like. 
Having  heard  the  child  calling  from  the  steamer  in  the  night, 
she  felt  some  mysterious  connection  with  her. 

Gudrun  talked  with  the  father  in  the  library.  Then  he 
sent  for  his  daughter.  She  came  accompanied  by  Made- 
moiselle. 

"Winnie,  this  is  Miss  Brangwen,  who  will  be  so  kind  as 
to  help  you  with  your  drawing  and  making  models  of  your 
animals,"  said  the  father. 

The  child  looked  at  Gudrun  for  a  moment  with  interest, 
before  she  came  forward  and  with  her  face  averted  offered  her 
hand.  There  was  a  complete  sangfroid  and  indifference  under 
Winifred's  childish  reserve,  a  certain  irresponsible  callousness. 

"How  do  you  do?"  said  the  child,  not  lifting  her  face. 

"How  do  you  do?"  said  Gudrun. 

Then  Winifred  stood  aside,  and  Gudrun  was  introduced 
to  Mademoiselle. 

"You  have  a  fine  day  for  your  walk,"  said  Mademoiselle, 
in  a  bright  manner. 

"Quite  fine,"  said  Gudrun. 

Winifred  was  watching  from  her  distance.  She  was  as  if 
amused,  but  rather  unsure  as  yet  what  this  new  person  was 
like.  She  saw  so  many  new  persons,  and  so  few  who  became 
real  to  her.      Mademoiselle  was  of  no  count  whatever,  the 

259 


260  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

child  merely  put  up  with  her,  calmly  and  easily,  accepting  her 
little  authority  with  faint  scorn,  compliant  out  of  childish 
arrogance  of  indifference. 

"Well,  Winifred,"  said  the  father,  "aren't  you  glad  Miss 
Brangwen  has  come?  She  makes  animals  and  birds  in  wood 
and  in  clay,  that  the  people  in  London  write  about  in  the 
papers,  praising  them  to  the  skies." 

Winifred  smiled  slightly. 

"Who  told  you,  Daddie?"  she  asked. 

"Who  told  me?     Hermione  told  me,  and  Rupert  Birkin." 

"Do  you  know  them?"  Winifred  asked  of  Gudrun,  turning 
to  her  with  faint  challenge. 

"Yes,"  said  Gudrun. 

Winifred  readjusted  herself  a  little.  She  had  been  ready 
to  accept  Gudrun  as  a  sort  of  servant.  Now  she  saw  it  was 
on  terms  of  friendship  they  were  intended  to  meet.  She  was 
rather  glad.  She  had  so  many  half  inferiors,  whom  she  tol- 
erated with  perfect  good-humour. 

Gudrun  was  very  calm.  She  also  did  not  take  these  things 
very  seriously.  A  new  occasion  was  most  spectacular  to  her. 
However,  Winifred  was  a  detached,  ironic  child,  she  would 
never  attach  herself.  Gudrun  liked  her  and  was  intrigued  by 
her.  The  first  meetings  went  off  with  a  certain  humiliating 
clumsiness.  Neither  Winifred  nor  her  instructress  had  any 
social  grace. 

Soon,  however,  they  met  in  a  kind  of  make-belief  world. 
Winifred  did  not  notice  human  beings  unless  they  were  like 
herself,  playful  and  slightly  mocking.  She  would  accept 
nothing  but  the  world  of  amusement,  and  the  serious  people 
of  her  life  were  the  animals  she  had  for  pets.  On  those  she 
lavished,  almost  ironically,  her  affection  and  her  companion- 
ship. To  the  rest  of  the  human  scheme  she  submitted  with 
a  faint  bored  indifference. 

She  had  a  Pekinese  dog  called  Looloo,  which  she  loved. 

"Let  us  draw  Looloo,"  said  Gudrun,  "and  see  if  we  can 
get  his  Looliness,  shall  we?" 

"Darling!"  cried  Winifred,  rushing  to  the  dog,  that  sat 
with  contemplative  sadness  on  the  hearth,  and  kissing  its 
bulging  brow.      "Darling  one,  will  you  be  drawn?     Shall  its 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  261 

mummy  draw  its  portrait?"  Then  she  chuckled  gleefully,  and 
turning  to  Gudrun,  said:   "Oh,  let's!" 

They  proceeded  to  get  pencils  and  paper,  and  were  ready. 

"Beautifullest,"  cried  Winifred,  hugging  the  dog,  "sit  still 
while  its  mummy  draws  its  beautiful  portrait."  The  dog 
looked  up  at  her  with  grievous  resignation  in  its  large,  promi- 
nent eyes.  She  kissed  it  fervently,  and  said :  "I  wonder  what 
mine  will  be  like.     It's  sure  to  be  awful." 

As  she  sketched  she  chuckled  to  herself,  and  cried  out  at 
times: 

"Oh  darling,  you're  so  beautiful!" 

And  again  chuckling,  she  rushed  to  embrace  the  dog,  in 
penitence,  as  if  she  were  doing  him  some  subtle  injury.  He 
sat  all  the  time  with  the  resignation  and  fretfulness  of  ages  on 
his  dark  velvety  face.  She  drew  slowly,  with  a  wicked  con- 
centration in  her  eyes,  her  head  on  one  side,  an  intense  still- 
ness over  her.  She  was  as  if  working  the  spell  of  some  en- 
chantment. Suddenly  she  had  finished.  She  looked  at  the 
dog,  and  then  at  her  drawing,  and  then  cried,  with  real  grief 
for  the  dog,  and  at  the  same  time  with  a  wicked  exultation: 

"My  beautiful,  why  did  they?" 

She  took  her  paper  to  the  dog,  and  held  it  under  his  nose. 
He  turned  his  head  aside  as  in  chagrin  and  mortification,  and 
she  impulsively  kissed  his  velvety  bulging  forehead. 

"'s  a  Loolie,  's  a  little  Loozie!  Look  at  his  portrait, 
darling,  look  at  his  portrait,  that  his  mother  has  done  of 
him."  She  looked  at  her  paper  and  chuckled.  Then,  kiss- 
ing the  dog  once  more,  she  rose  and  came  gravely  to  Gudrun, 
offering  her  the  paper. 

It  was  a  grotesque  little  diagram  of  a  grotesque  little  ani- 
mal, so  wicked  and  so  comical,  a  slow  smile  came  over  Gud- 
run's  face,  unconsciously.  And  at  her  side  Winifred  chuckled 
with  gkv,  and  said: 

"It  isn't  like  him,  is  it?  He's  much  lovelier  than  that. 
He's  to  beautiful — mmm,  Looloo,  my  sweet  darling."  And 
she  flew  off  to  embrace  the  chagrined  little  dog.  He  looked 
up  at  her  with  reproachful,  saturnine  eyes,  vanquished  in  his 
extreme  agedness  of  being.  Then  she  flew  back  to  her  draw- 
ing, and  chuckled  with  satisfaction. 


262  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"It  isn't  like  him,  is  it?"  she  said  to  Gudrun. 

"Yes,  it's  very  like  him,"  Gudrun  replied. 

The  child  treasured  her  drawing,  carried  it  about  with 
her,  and  showed  it,  with  a  silent  embarrassment,  to  every- 
body. 

"Look,"  she  said,  thrusting  the  paper  into  her  father's 
hand. 

"Why  that's  Looloo!"  he  exclaimed.  And  he  looked  down 
in  surprise,  hearing  the  almost  inhuman  chuckle  of  the  child 
at  his  side. 

Gerald  was  away  from  home  when  Gudrun  first  came  to 
Shortlands.  But  the  first  morning  he  came  back  he  watched 
for  her.  It  was  a  sunny,  soft  morning,  and  he  lingered  in 
the  garden  paths,  looking  at  the  flowers  that  had  come  out 
during  his  absence.  He  was  clean  and  fit  as  ever,  shaven, 
his  fair  hair  scrupulously  parted  at  the  side,  bright  in  the 
sunshine,  his  short,  fair  moustache  closely  clipped,  his  eyes 
with  their  humourous  kind  twinkle,  which  was  so  deceptive. 
He  was  dressed  in  black,  his  clothes  sat  well  on  his  well- 
nourished  body.  Yet  as  he  lingered  before  the  flower-beds  in 
the  morning  sunshine,  there  was  a  certain  isolation,  a  fear 
about  him,  as  of  something  wanting. 

Gudrun  came  up  quickly,  unseen.  She  was  dressed  in  blue, 
with  woollen  yellow  stockings,  like  the  Bluecoat  boys.  He 
glanced  up  in  surprise.  Her  stockings  always  disconcerted 
him,  the  pale-yellow  stockings  and  the  heavy,  heavy  black 
shoes.  Winifred,  who  had  been  playing  about  the  garden 
with  Mademoiselle  and  the  dogs,  came  flitting  towards  Gud- 
run. The  child  wore  a  dress  of  black-and-white  stripes.  Her 
hair  was  rather  short,  cut  round  and  hanging  level  in  her 
neck. 

"We're  going  to  do  Bismarck,  aren't  we?"  she  said,  linking 
her  hand  through  Gudrun's  arm. 

"Yes,  we're  going  to  do  Bismarck.     Do  you  want  to?" 

"Oh  yes — oh  I  do!  I  want  most  awfully  to  do  Bismarck. 
He  looks  so  splendid  this  morning,  so  fierce.  He's  almost  as 
big  as  a  lion."  And  the  child  chuckled  sardonically  at  her 
own  hyperbole.      "He's  a  real  king,  he  really  is." 

"Bon  jour,  Mademoiselle,"  said  the  little  French  governess, 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  263 

wavering  up  with  a  slight  bow,  a  bow  of  the  sort  that  Gudrun 
loathed,  insolent. 

"Winifred  veut  tant  faire  le  portrait  de  Bismarck — !  Oh, 
mais  toute  la  matinee — 'We  will  do  Bismarck  this  morning!' — 
Bismarck,  Bismarck,  toujours  Bismarck !  C'est  un  lapin,  n'est- 
ce  pas,  mademoiselle?" 

"Oui,  c'est  un  grand  lapin  blanc  et  noir.  Vous  ne  l'avez 
pas  vu?"  said  Gudrun  in  her  good,  but  rather  heavy  French. 

"Non,  mademoiselle,  Winifred  n'a  jamais  voulu  me  le  faire 
voir.  Tant  de  fois  je  le  lui  ai  demande,  'Qu'est  ce  done  que 
ce  Bismarck,  Winifred?'  Mais  elle  n'a  pas  voulu  me  le  dire. 
Son  Bismarck,  e'etait  un  mystere." 

"Oui,  c'est  un  mystere,  vraiment  un  mystere!  Miss 
Brangwen,  say  that  Bismarck  is  a  mystery,"  cried  Winifred. 

"Bismarck,  is  a  mystery,  Bismarck,  c'est  un  mystere,  der 
Bismarck,  er  ist  ein  Wunder,"  said  Gudrun,  in  mocking  incan- 
tation. 

"Ja,  er  ist  ein  Wunder,"  repeated  Winifred,  with  odd  seri- 
ousness, under  which  lay  a  wicked  chuckle. 

"Ist  er  auch  ein  Wunder?"  came  the  slightly  insolent 
sneering  of  Mademoiselle. 

"Doch!"  said  Winifred  briefly,  indifferent. 

"Doch  ist  er  nicht  ein  Konig.  Beesmarck,  he  was  not  a 
king,  Winifred,  as  you  have  said.  He  was  only — il  n'etait 
que  chancelier." 

"Qu'est  ce  qu'un  chancelier?"  said  Winifred,  with  slightly 
contemptuous  indifference. 

"A  chancelier  is  a  chancellor,  and  a  chancellor  is,  I  believe, 
a  sort  of  judge,"  said  Gerald,  coming  up  and  shaking  hands 
with  Gudrun.  "You'll  have  made  a  song  of  Bismarck  soon," 
said  he. 

Mademoiselle  waited,  and  discreetly  made  her  inclination, 
and  her  greeting. 

"So  they  wouldn't  let  you  see  Bismarck,  Mademoiselle?" 
he  said. 

"Non,  Monsieur." 

"Ay,  very  mean  of  them.  What  are  you  going  to  do  to 
him.  Miss  Brangwen?  I  want  him  sent  to  the  kitchen  and 
cooked." 


264  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

"Oh  no,"  cried  Winifred. 

"We're  going  to  draw  him,"  said  Gudrun. 

"Draw  him  and  quarter  him  and  dish  him  up,"  he  said, 
being  purposely  fatuous. 

"Oh  no,"  cried  Winifred  with  emphasis,  chuckling. 

Gudrun  detected  the  tang  of  mockery  in  him,  and  she 
looked  up  and  smiled  into  his  face.  He  felt  his  nerves  caressed. 
Their  eyes  met  in  knowledge. 

"How  do  you  like  Shortlands?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  very  much,"  she  said,  with  nonchalance. 

"Glad  you  do.      Have  you  noticed  these  flowers?" 

He  led  her  along  the  path.  She  followed  intently.  Wini- 
fred came,  and  the  governess  lingered  in  the  rear.  They 
stopped  before  some  veined  salpiglossis  flowers. 

"Aren't  they  wonderful?"  she  cried,  looking  at  them  ab- 
sorbedly.  Strange  how  her  reverential,  almost  ecstatic  admir- 
ation of  the  flowers  caressed  his  nerves.  She  stooped  down, 
and  touched  the  trumpets,  with  infinitely  fine  and  delicate- 
touching  finger-tips.  It  filled  him  with  ease  to  see  her.  When 
she  rose,  her  eyes,  hot  with  the  beauty  of  the  flowers,  looked 
into  his. 

"What  are  they?"  she  asked. 

"Sort  of  petunia,  I  suppose,"  he  answered.  "I  don't  really 
know  them." 

"They  are  quite  strangers  to  me,"  she  said. 

They  stood  together  in  a  false  intimacy,  a  nervous  contact. 
And  he  was  in  love  with  her. 

She  was  aware  of  Mademoiselle  standing  near,  like  a  little 
French  beetle,  observant  and  calculating.  She  moved  away 
with  Winifred,  saying  they  would  go  to  find  Bismarck. 

Gerald  watched  them  go,  looking  all  the  while  at  the  soft, 
full,  still  body  of  Gudrun,  in  its  silky  cashmere.  How  silky 
and  rich  and  soft  her  body  must  be.  An  excess  of  apprecia- 
tion came  over  his  mind,  she  was  the  all-desirable,  the  all- 
beautiful.  He  wanted  only  to  come  to  her,  nothing  more. 
He  was  only  this,  this  being  that  should  come  to  her,  and  be 
given  to  her. 

At  the  same  time  he  was  finely  and  acutely  aware  of  Made- 
moiselle's neat,  brittle  finality  of  form.     She  was  like  some 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  265 

elegant  beetle  with  thin  ankles,  perched  on  her  high  heels, 
her  glossy  black  dress  perfectly  correct,  her  dark  hair  done 
high  and  admirably.  How  repulsive  her  completeness  and 
her  finality  was!     He  loathed  her. 

Yet  he  did  admire  her.  She  was  perfectly  correct.  And 
it  did  rather  annoy  him,  that  Gudrun  came  dressed  in  startling 
colours,  like  a  macaw,  when  the  faniily  was  in  mourning.  Like 
a  macaw  she  was!  He  watched  the  lingering  way  she  took 
her  feet  from  the  ground.  And  her  ankles  were  pale  yellow, 
and  her  dress  a  deep  blue.  Yet  it  pleased  him.  It  pleased 
him  very  much.  He  felt  the  challenge  in  her  very  attire — 
she  challenged  the  whole  world.  And  he  smiled  as  to  the  note 
of  a  trumpet. 

Gudrun  and  Winifred  went  through  the  house  to  the  back, 
where  were  the  stables  and  the  out-buildings.  Everywhere 
was  still  and  deserted.  Mr.  Crich  had  gone  out  for  a  short 
drive,  the  stable-man  had  just  led  round  Gerald's  horse. 
The  two  girls  went  to  the  hutch  that  stood  in  a  corner,  and 
looked  at  the  great  black-and-white  rabbit. 

"Isn't  he  beautiful?  Oh,  do  look  at  him  listening! 
Doesn't  he  look  silly?"  she  laughed  quickly,  then  added, 
"Oh,  do  let's  do  him  listening,  do  let  us,  he  listens  with  so 
much  of  himself; — don't  you  darling  Bismarck?" 

"Can  we  take  him  out?"  said  Gudrun. 

"He's  very  strong.  He  really  is  extremely  strong."  She 
looked  at  Gudrun,  her  head  on  one  side,  in  odd  calculating 
mistrust. 

"But  we'll  try,  shall  we?" 

"Yes,  if  you  like.     But  he's  a  fearful  kicker!" 

They  took  the  key  to  unlock  the  door.  The  rabbit  ex- 
ploded in  a  wild  rush  round  the  hutch. 

"He  scratches  most  awfully  sometimes,"  cried  Winifred, 
in  excitement.  "Oh  do  look  at  him,  isn't  he  wonderful!" 
The  rabbit  tore  round  the  hutch  in  a  flurry.  "Bismarck!" 
cried  the  child,  in  rousing  excitement.  "How  dreadful  you 
are!  You  are  beastly."  Winifred  looked  up  at  Gudrun  with 
some  misgiving  in  her  wild  excitement.  Gudrun  smiled  sar- 
donically with  her  mouth.  Winifred  made  a  strange,  croon- 
ing noiae  of  unaccountable  excitement.      "Now  he's  still!" 


266  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

she  cried,  seeing  the  rabbit  settled  down  in  a  far  comer  of 
the  hutch.  "Shall  we  take  him  now?"  she  whispered  excit- 
edly, mysteriously,  looking  up  at  Gudrun  and  edging  very 
close.  "Shall  we  get  him  now?"  she  chuckled  wickedly  to 
herself. 

They  unlocked  the  door  of  the  hutch.  Gudrun  thrust  in 
her  arm  and  seized  the  great,  lusty  rabbit  as  it  crouched  still, 
she  grasped  its  long  ears.  It  set  its  four  feet  flat,  and  thrust 
back.  There  was  a  long  scraping  sound  as  it  was  hauled  for- 
ward, and  in  another  instant  it  was  in  mid-air,  lunging  wildly, 
its  body  flying  like  a  spring  coiled  and  released,  as  it  lashed  out, 
suspended  from  the  ears.  Gudrun  held  the  black-and-white 
tempest  at  arms'  length,  averting  her  face.  But  the  rabbit 
was  magically  strong,  it  was  all  she  could  do  to  keep  her  grasp. 
She  almost  lost  her  presence  of  mind. 

"Bismarck,  Bismarck,  you  are  behaving  terribly,"  said 
Winifred  in  a  rather  frightened  voice,  "Oh,  do  put  him  down, 
he's  beastly." 

Gudrun  stood  for  a  moment  astounded  by  the  thunder- 
storm that  had  sprung  into  being  in  her  grip.  Then  her 
colour  came  up,  a  heavy  rage  came  over  her  like  a  cloud. 
She  stood  shaken  as  a  house  in  a  storm,  and  utterly  overcome. 
Her  heart  was  arrested  with  fury  at  the  mindlessness  and  the 
bestial  stupidity  of  this  struggle,  her  wrists  were  badly  scored 
by  the  claws  of  the  beast,  a  heavy  cruelty  welled  up  in  her. 

Gerald  came  round  as  she  was  trying  to  capture  the  flying 
rabbit  under  her  arm.  He  saw,  with  subtle  recognition,  her 
sullen  passion  of  cruelty. 

"You  should  let  one  of  the  men  do  that  for  you,"  he  said 
hurrying  up. 

"Oh,  he's  so  horrid!"  cried  Winifred,  almost  frantic. 

He  held  out  his  nervous,  sinewy  hand  and  took  the  rabbit 
by  the  ears,  from  Gudrun. 

"It's  most  fearfully  strong,"  she  cried,  in  a  high  voice,  like 
the  crying  of  a  seagull,  strange  and  vindictive. 

The  rabbit  made  itself  into  a  ball  in  the  air,  and  lashed 
out,  flinging  itself  into  a  bow.  It  really  seemed  demoniacal. 
Gudrun  saw  Gerald's  body  tighten,  saw  a  sharp  blindness 
come  into  his  eyes. 


WOMEN  EN  LOVE  267 

"I  know  these  beggars  of  old,"  he  said. 

The  long,  demon-like  beast  lashed  out  again,  spread  on  the 
air  as  if  it  were  flying,  looking  something  like  a  dragon,  then 
closing  up  again,  inconceivably  powerful  and  explosive.  The 
man's  body,  strung  to  its  efforts,  vibrated  strongly.  Then  a 
sudden  sharp,  white-edged  wrath  came  up  in  him.  Swift  as 
lightning  he  drew  back  and  brought  his  free  hand  down  like 
a  hawk  on  the  neck  of  the  rabbit.  Simultaneously,  there 
came  the  unearthly  abhorrent  scream  of  a  rabbit  in  the  fear 
of  death.  It  made  one  immense  writhe,  tore  his  wrists  and 
his  sleeves  in  a  final  convulsion,  all  its  belly  flashed  white  in 
a  whirlwind  of  paws,  and  then  he  had  slung  it  round  and  had 
it  under  his  arm,  fast.  It  cowered  and  skulked.  His  face 
was  gleaming  with  a  smile. 

"You  wouldn't  think  there  was  all  that  force  in  a  rabbit," 
he  said,  looking  at  Gudrun.  And  he  saw  her  eyes  black  as 
night  in  her  pallid  face,  she  looked  almost  unearthly.  The 
scream  of  the  rabbit,  after  the  violent  tussle,  seemed  to  have 
torn  the  veil  of  her  consciousness.  He  looked  at  her,  and  the 
whitish,  electric  gleam  in  his  face  intensified. 

"I  don't  really  like  him,"  Winifred  was  crooning.  "I 
don't  care  for  him  as  I  do  for  Loozie.     He's  hateful  really." 

A  smile  twisted  Gudrun's  face,  as  she  recovered.  She 
knew  she  was  revealed. 

"Don't  they  make  the  most  fearful  noise  when  they 
scream?"  she  cried,  the  high  note  in  her  voice,  like  a  seagull's 
cry. 

"Abominable,"  he  said. 

"He  shouldn't  be  so  silly  when  he  has  to  be  taken  out," 
Winifred  was  saying,  putting  out  her  hand  and  touching  the 
rabbit  tentatively,  as  it  skulked  under  his  arm,  motionless  as 
if  it  were  dead. 

"He's  not  dead,  is  he  Gerald?"  she  asked. 

"No,  he  ought  to  be,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  he  ought!"  cried  the  child,  with  a  sudden  flush  of 
amusement.  And  she  touched  the  rabbit  with  more  confi- 
dence. "His  heart  is  beating  so  fast.  Isn't  he  funny.  He 
really  is." 

"Where  do  you  want  him?"  asked  Gerald. 


268  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"In  the  little  green  court,"  she  said. 

Gudrun  looked  at  Gerald  with  strange,  darkened  eyes, 
strained  with  underworld  knowledge,  almost  supplicating,  like 
those  of  a  creature  which  is  at  his  mercy,  yet  which  is  his 
ultimate  equal.  He  did  not  know  what  to  say  to  her.  He 
felt  the  mutual  hellish  recognition.  And  he  felt  he  ought  to 
say  something,  to  cover  it.  He  had  the  power  of  lightning 
in  his  nerves,  she  seemed  like  a  soft  recipient  of  his  magical, 
hideous  white  fire.    He  was  unconfident,  he  had  qualms  of  fear. 

"Did  he  hurt  you?"  he  asked. 

"No,"  she  said. 

"He's  an  insensible  beast,"  he  said,  turning  his  face  away. 

They  came  to  the  little  court,  which  was  shut  in  by  old 
red  walls,  in  whose  crevices  wall-flowers  were  growing.  The 
grass  was  soft  and  fine  and  old,  a  level  floor  carpeting  the 
court,  the  sky  was  blue  overhead.  Gerald  tossed  the  rabbit 
down.  It  crouched  still  and  would  not  move.  Gudrun 
watched  it  with  faint  horror. 

"Why  doesn't  it  move?"  she  cried. 

"It's  skulking,"  he  said. 

She  looked  up  at  him,  and  a  slight  sinister  smile  contracted 
her  white  face. 

"Isn't  it  a  fool  I"  she  cried.      "Isn't  it  a  sickening  fool  ?" 

The  vindictive  mockery  in  her  voice  made  his  brain  quiver. 
Glancing  up  at  him,  into  his  eyes,  she  revealed  again  the 
mocking,  white-cruel  recognition.  There  was  a  league  be- 
tween them,  abhorrent  to  them  both.  They  were  implicated 
with  each  other  in  abhorrent  mysteries. 

"How  many  scratches  have  you?"  he  asked,  showing  his 
hard  forearm,  white  and  hard  and  torn  in  red  gashes. 

"How  really  vile!"  she  cried,  flushing  with  a  sinister  vision. 
"Mine  is  nothing." 

She  lifted  her  arm  and  showed  a  deep  red  score  down  the 
silken  white  flesh. 

"What  a  devil!"  he  exclaimed.  But  it  was  as  if  he  had 
had  knowledge  of  her  in  the  long  red  rent  of  her  forearm,  so 
silken  and  soft.  He  did  not  want  to  touch  her.  He  would 
have  to  make  himself  touch  her,  deliberately.  The  long, 
shallow  red  rip  seemed  torn  across  his  own  brain,  tearing  the 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  269 

surface  of  his  ultimate  consciousness,  letting  through  the  for- 
ever unconscious,  unthinkable  red  ether  of  the  beyond,  the 
obscene  beyond. 

"It  doesn't  hurt  you  very  much,  does  it?"  he  asked, 
solicitous. 

"Not  at  all,"  she  cried. 

And  suddenly  the  rabbit,  which  had  been  crouching  as  if 
it  were  a  flower,  so  still  and  soft,  suddenly  burst  into  life. 
Round  and  round  the  court  it  went,  as  if  shot  from  a  gun, 
round  and  round  like  a  furry  meteorite,  in  a  tense  hard  circle 
that  seemed  to  bind  their  brains.  They  all  stood  in  amaze- 
ment, smiling  uncannily,  as  if  the  rabbit  were  obeying  some 
unknown  incantation.  Round  and  round  it  flew,  on  the  grass 
under  the  old  red  walls  like  a  storm. 

And  then  quite  suddenly  it  settled  down,  hobbled  among 
the  grass,  and  sat  considering,  its  nose  twitching  like  a  bit  of 
fluff  in  the  wind.  After  having  considered  for  a  few  minutes, 
a  soft  bunch  with  a  black,  open  eye,  which  perhaps  was  look- 
ing at  them,  perhaps  was  not,  it  hobbled  calmly  forward  and 
began  to  nibble  the  grass  with  that  mean  motion  of  a  rabbit's 
quick  eating. 

"It's  mad,"  said  Gudrun.     "It  is  most  decidedly  mad." 

He  laughed. 

"The  question  is,"  he  said,  "what  is  madness?  I  don't 
suppose  it  is  rabbit-mad." 

"Don't  you  think  it  is?"  she  asked. 

"No.     That's  what  it  is  to  be  a  rabbit." 

There  was  a  queer,  faint,  obscene  smile  over  his  face.  She 
looked  at  him  and  saw  him,  and  knew  that  he  was  initiate  as 
she  was  initiate.  This  thwarted  her,  and  contravened  her, 
for  the  moment. 

"God  be  praised  we  aren't  rabbits,"  she  said,  in  a  high, 
shrill  voice. 

The  smile  intensified  a  little,  in  his  face. 

"Not  rabbits?"  he  said,  looking  at  her  fixedly. 

Slowly  her  face  relaxed  into  a  smile  of  obscene  recognition. 

"Ah,  Gerald,"  she  said,  in  a  strong,  slow,  almost  man-like 
way.  "All  that,  and  more."  Her  eyes  looked  up  at  him 
with  shocking  nonchalance. 


270  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

He  felt  again  as  if  she  had  hit  him  across  the  face — or 
rather,  as  if  she  had  torn  him  across  the  breast,  dully,  finally. 
He  turned  aside. 

"Eat,  eat  my  darling!"  Winifred  was  softly  conjuring  the 
rabbit,  and  creeping  forward  to  touch  it.  It  hobbled  away 
from  her.  "Let  its  mother  stroke  its  fur  then,  darling,  be- 
cause it  is  so  mysterious ." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

AFTER  his  illness  Birkin  went  to  the  south  of  France 
for  a  time.  He  did  not  write,  nobody  heard  anything 
of  him.  Ursula,  left  alone,  felt  as  if  everything  were 
lapsing  out.  There  seemed  to  be  no  hope  in  the  world.  One 
was  a  tiny  little  rock  with  the  tide  of  nothingness  rising  higher 
and  higher.  She  herself  was  real,  and  only  herself — just  like 
a  rock  in  a  wash  of  flood-water.  The  rest  was  all  nothing- 
ness.    She  was  hard  and  indifferent,  isolated  in  herself. 

There  was  nothing  for  it  now,  but  contemptuous,  resistant 
indifference.  All  the  world  was  lapsing  into  a  grey  wish-wash 
of  nothingness,  she  had  no  contact  and  no  connection  anywhere. 
She  despised  and  detested  the  whole  show.  From  the  bot- 
tom of  her  heart,  from  the  bottom  of  her  soul,  she  despised 
and  detested  people,  adult  people.  She  loved  only  children 
and  animals;  children  she  loved  passionately,  but  coldly. 
They  made  her  want  to  hug  them,  to  protect  them,  to  give 
them  life.  But  this  very  love,  based  on  pity  and  despair, 
was  only  a  bondage  and  a  pain  to  her.  She  loved  best  of  all 
the  animals,  that  were  single  and  unsocial  as  she  herself  was. 
She  loved  the  horses  and  cows  in  the  field.  Each  was  single 
and  to  itself,  magical.  It  was  not  referred  away  to  some 
detestable  social  principle.  It  was  incapable  of  soulfulness 
and  tragedy,  which  she  detested  so  profoundly. 

She  could  be  very  pleasant  and  flattering,  almost  subser- 
vient, to  people  she  met.  But  no  one  was  taken  in.  In- 
stinctively each  felt  her  contemptuous  mockery  of  the  human 
being  in  himself,  or  herself.  She  had  a  profound  grudge  against 
the  human  being.  That  which  the  word  "human"  stood  for 
was  despicable  and  repugnant  to  her. 

Mostly  her  heart  was  closed  in  this  hidden,  unconscious 
strain  of  contemptuous  ridicule.  She  thought  she  loved,  she 
thought  she  was  full  of  love.  This  was  her  idea  of  herself. 
But  the  strange  brightness  of  her  presence,   a   marvellous 

271 


272  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

radiance  of  intrinsic  vitality,  was  a  luminousness  of  supreme 
repudiation,  repudiation,  nothing  but  repudiation. 

Yet,  at  moments,  she  yielded  and  softened,  she  wanted 
pure  love,  only  pure  love.  This  other,  this  state  of  constant 
unfailing  repudiation,  was  a  strain,  a  suffering  also.  A  terri- 
ble desire  for  pure  love  overcame  her  again. 

She  went  out  one  evening,  numbed  by  this  constant  essen- 
tial suffering.  Those  who  are  timed  for  destruction  must  die 
now.  The  knowledge  of  this  reached  a  finality,  a  finishing  in 
her.  And  the  finality  released  her.  If  fate  would  carry  off 
in  death  or  downfall  all  those  who  were  timed  to  go,  why  need 
she  trouble,  why  repudiate  any  further.  She  was  free  of  it 
all,  she  could  seek  a  new  union  elsewhere. 

Ursula  set  off  to  Willey  Green,  towards  the  mill.  She 
came  to  Willey  Water.  It  was  almost  full  again,  after  its 
period  of  emptiness.  Then  she  turned  off  through  the  woods. 
The  night  had  fallen,  it  was  dark.  But  she  forgot  to  be  afraid, 
she  who  had  such  great  sources  of  fear.  Among  the  trees, 
far  from  any  human  beings,  there  was  a  sort  of  magic  peace. 
The  more  one  could  find  a  pure  loneliness,  with  no  taint  of 
people,  the  better  one  felt.  She  was  in  reality  terrified,  hor- 
rified in  her  apprehension  of  people. 

She  started,  noticing  something  on  her  right  hand,  between 
the  tree  trunks.  It  was  like  a  great  presence,  watching  her, 
dodging  her.  She  started  violently.  It  was  only  the  moon, 
risen  through  the  thin  trees.  But  it  seemed  so  mysterious, 
with  its  white  and  deathly  smile.  And  there  was  no  avoiding 
it.  Night  or  day,  one  could  not  escape  the  sinister  face, 
triumphant  and  radiant  like  this  moon,  with  a  high  smile. 
She  hurried  on,  cowering  from  the  white  planet.  She  would 
just  see  the  pond  at  the  mill  before  she  went  home. 

Not  wanting  to  go  through  the  yard,  because  of  the  dogs, 
she  turned  off  along  the  hill-side  to  descend  on  the  pond 
from  above.  The  moon  was  transcendent  over  the  bare,  open 
space,  she  suffered  from  being  exposed  to  it.  There  was  a 
glimmer  of  nightly  rabbits  across  the  ground.  The  night  was 
as  clear  as  crystal,  and  very  still.  She  could  hear  a  distant 
coughing  of  a  sheep. 

So  she  swerved  down  to  the  steep,  tree-hidden  bank  above 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  273 

the  pond,  where  the  alders  twisted  their  roots.  She  was  glad 
to  pass  into  the  shade  out  of  the  moon.  There  she  stood,  at 
the  top  of  the  fallen-away  bank,  her  hand  on  the  rough  trunk 
of  a  tree,  looking  at  the  water,  that  was  perfect  in  its  stillness, 
floating  the  moon  upon  it.  But  for  some  reason  she  disliked 
it.  It  did  not  give  her  anything.  She  listened  for  the  hoarse 
rustle  of  the  sluice.  And  she  wished  for  something  else  out 
of  the  night,  she  wanted  another  night,  not  this  moon-brilliant 
hardness.  She  could  feel  her  soul  crying  out  in  her,  lament- 
ing desolately. 

She  saw  a  shadow  moving  by  the  water.  It  would  be 
Birkin.  He  had  come  back  then,  unawares.  She  accepted 
it  without  remark,  nothing  mattered  to  her.  She  sat  down 
among  the  roots  of  the  alder  tree,  dim  and  veiled,  hearing  the 
sound  of  the  sluice  like  dew  distilling  audibly  into  the  night. 
The  islands  were  dark  and  half  revealed,  the  reeds  were  dark 
also,  only  some  of  them  had  a  little  frail  fire  of  reflection.  A 
fish  leaped  secretly,  revealing  the  light  in  the  pond.  This  fire 
of  the  chill  night  breaking  constantly  on  to  the  pure  darkness, 
repelled  her.  She  wished  it  were  perfectly  dark,  perfectly, 
and  noiseless  and  without  motion.  Birkin,  small  and  dark 
also,  his  hair  tinged  with  moonlight,  wandered  nearer.  He 
was  quite  near,  and  yet  he  did  not  exist  in  her.  He  did  not 
know  she  was  there.  Supposing  he  did  something  he  would 
not  wish  to  be  seen  doing,  thinking  he  was  quite  private? 
But  there,  what  did  it  matter?  What  did  the  small  privacies 
matter?  How  could  it  matter,  what  he  did?  How  can  there 
be  any  secrets,  we  are  all  the  same  organisms?  How  can 
there  be  any  secrecy,  when  everything  is  known  to  all  of  us? 

He  was  touching  unconsciously  the  dead  husks  of  flowers 
as  he  passed  by,  and  talking  disconnectedly  to  himself. 

"You  can't  go  away,"  he  was  saying.  "There  is  no  away. 
You  only  withdraw  upon  yourself." 

He  threw  a  dead  flower-husk  on  to  the  water. 

"An  antiphony — they  lie,  and  you  sink  back  to  them. — 
There  wouldn't  have  to  be  any  truth,  if  there  weren't  any 
lies. — Then  one  needn't  assert  anything." 

He  stood  still,  looking  at  the  water,  and  throwing  upon  it 
the  husks  of  the  flowers. 


274  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Cybele — curse  her!  The  accursed  Syria  Dea! — Does  one 
begrudge  it  her? — what  else  is  there?" 

Ursula  wanted  to  laugh  loudly  and  hysterically,  hearing 
his  isolated  voice  speaking  out.     It  was  so  ridiculous. 

He  stood  staring  at  the  water.  Then  he  stooped  and 
picked  up  a  stone,  which  he  threw  sharply  at  the  pond.  Ur- 
sula was  aware  of  the  bright  moon  leaping  and  swaying,  all 
distorted,  in  her  eyes.  It  seemed  to  shoot  out  arms  of  fire 
like  a  cuttle-fish,  like  a  luminous  polyp,  palpitating  strongly 
before  her. 

And  his  shadow  on  the  border  of  the  pond,  was  watching 
for  a  few  moments,  then  he  stooped  and  groped  on  the  ground. 
Then  again  there  was  a  burst  of  sound,  and  a  burst  of  brilliant 
light,  the  moon  had  exploded  on  the  water,  and  was  flying 
asunder  in  flakes  of  white  and  dangerous  fire.  Rapidly,  like 
white  birds,  the  fires  all  broken  rose  across  the  pond,  fleeing 
in  clamourous  confusion,  battling  with  the  flock  of  dark  waves 
that  were  forcing  their  way  in.  The  furthest  waves  of  light, 
fleeing  out,  seemed  to  be  clamouring  against  the  shore  for 
escape,  the  waves  of  darkness  came  in  heavily,  running  under 
towards  the  centre.  But  at  the  centre,  the  heart  of  all,  was 
still  a  vivid,  incandescent  quivering  of  a  white  moon  not 
quite  destroyed,  a  white  body  of  fire  writhing  and  striving 
and  not  even  now  broken  open,  not  yet  violated.  It  seemed 
to  be  drawing  itself  together  with  strange,  violent  pangs,  in 
blind  effort.  It  was  getting  stronger,  it  was  re-asserting  itself, 
the  inviolable  moon.  And  the  rays  were  hastening  in  in  thin 
lines  of  light,  to  return  to  the  strengthened  moon,  that  shook 
upon  the  water  in  triumphant  reassumption. 

Birkin  stood  and  watched,  motionless,  till  the  pond  was 
almost  calm,  the  moon  was  almost  serene.  Then,  satisfied  of 
so  much,  he  looked  for  more  stones.  She  felt  his  invisible 
tenacity.  And  in  a  moment  again,  the  broken  lights  scattered 
in  explosion  over  her  face,  dazzling  her;  and  then,  almost 
immediately,  came  the  second  shot.  The  moon  leapt  up 
white  and  burst  through  the  air.  Darts  of  bright  light  shot 
asunder,  darkness  swept  over  the  centre.  There  was  no  moon, 
only  a  battlefield  of  broken  lights  and  shadows,  running  close 
together.      Shadows,  dark  and  heavy,  struck  again  and  again 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  275 

across  the  place  where  the  heart  of  the  moon  had  been,  oblit- 
erating it  altogether.  The  white  fragments  pulsed  up  and 
down,  and  could  not  find  where  to  go,  apart  and  brilliant  on 
the  water  like  the  petals  of  a  rose  that  a  wind  has  blown  far 
and  wide. 

Yet  again,  they  were  flickering  their  way  to  the  centre, 
finding  the  path  blindly,  enviously.  And  again,  all  was  still, 
as  Birkin  and  Ursula  watched.  The  waters  were  loud  on  the 
shore.  He  saw  the  moon  regathering  itself  insidiously,  saw 
the  heart  of  the  rose  intertwining  vigorously  and  blindly,  call- 
ing back  the  scattered  fragments,  winning  home  the  fragments 
in  a  pulse  and  in  effort  of  return. 

And  he  was  not  satisfied.  Like  a  madness,  he  must  go  on. 
He  got  large  stones,  and  threw  them,  one  after  the  other,  at 
the  white-burning  centre  of  the  moon,  till  there  was  nothing 
but  a  rocking  of  hollow  noise,  and  a  pond  surged  up,  no  moon 
any  more,  only  a  few  broken  flakes  tangled  and  glittering 
broadcast  in  the  darkness,  without  aim  or  meaning,  a  darkened 
confusion,  like  a  black  and  white  kaleidoscope  tossed  at  ran- 
dom. The  hollow  night  was  rocking  and  crashing  with  noise, 
and  from  the  sluice  came  sharp,  regular  flashes  of  sound. 
Flakes  of  light  appeared  here  and  there,  glittering  tormented 
among  the  shadows,  far  off,  in  strange  places;  among  the 
dripping  shadow  of  the  willow  on  the  island.  Birkin  stood 
and  listened,  and  was  satisfied. 

Ursula  was  dazed,  her  mind  was  all  gone.  She  felt  she 
had  fallen  to  the  ground  and  was  spilled  out,  like  water  on 
the  earth.  Motionless  and  spent  she  remained  in  the  gloom. 
Though  even  now  she  was  aware,  unseeing,  that  in  the  dark- 
ness was  a  little  tumult  of  ebbing  flakes  of  light,  a  cluster 
dancing  secretly  in  a  round,  twining  and  coming  steadily 
together.  They  were  gathering  a  heart  again,  they  were 
coining  once  more  into  being.  Gradually  the  fragments 
caught  together  re-united,  heaving,  rocking,  dancing,  falling 
back  as  in  panic,  but  working  their  way  home  again  persist- 
ently, making  semblance  of  fleeing  away  when  they  had  ad- 
vanced, but  always  flickering  nearer,  a  little  closer  to  the 
mark,  the  cluster  growing  mysteriously  larger  and  brighter,  as 
after  gleam  fell  in  with  the  whole,  until  a  ragged  rose, 


276  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

a  distorted,  frayed  moon  was  shaking  upon  the  waters  again, 
re-asserted,  renewed,  trying  to  recover  from  its  convulsion,  to 
get  over  the  disfigurement  and  the  agitation,  to  be  whole  and 
composed,  at  peace. 

Birkin  lingered  vaguely  by  the  water.  Ursula  was  afraid 
that  he  would  stone  the  moon  again.  She  slipped  from  her 
seat  and  went  down  to  him  saying: 

"You  won't  throw  stones  at  it  any  more,  will  you?" 

"How  long  have  you  been  there?" 

"All  the  time.  You  won't  throw  any  more  stones,  will 
you?" 

"I  wanted  to  see  if  I  could  make  it  be  quite  gone  off  the 
pond,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  it  was  horrible,  really.  Why  should  you  hate  the 
moon?     It  hasn't  done  you  any  harm,  has  it?" 

"Was  it  hate?"  he  said. 

And  they  were  silent  for  a  few  minutes. 

"When  did  you  come  back?"  she  said. 

"To-day." 

"Why  did  you  never  write?" 

"I  could  find  nothing  to  say." 

"Why  was  there  nothing  to  say?" 

"I  don't  know.      Why  are  there  no  daffodils  now?" 

"No." 

Again  there  was  a  space  of  silence.  Ursula  looked  at  the 
moon.  It  had  gathered  itself  together,  and  was  quivering 
slightly. 

"Was  it  good  for  you,  to  be  alone?"  she  asked. 

"Perhaps.  Not  that  I  know  much.  But  I  got  over  a 
good  deal.      Did  you  do  anything  important?" 

"No.    I  looked  at  England,  and  thought  I'd  done  with  it." 

"Why  England?"  he  asked  in  surprise. 

"I  don't  know,  it  came  like  that." 

"It  isn't  a  question  of  nations,"  he  said.  "France  is  far 
worse." 

"Yes,  I  know.     I  felt  I'd  done  with  it  all." 

They  went  and  sat  down  on  the  roots  of  the  trees,  in  the 
shadow.  And  being  silent,  he  remembered  the  beauty  of  her 
eyes,  which  were  sometimes  filled  with  light,  like  spring,  suf- 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  277 

fused  with  wonderful  promise.  So  he  said  to  her,  slowly, 
with  difficulty: 

"There  is  a  golden  light  in  you,  which  I  wish  you  would  give 
me."    It  was  as  if  he  had  been  thinking  of  this  for  some  time. 

She  was  startled,  she  seemed  to  leap  clear  of  him.  Yet 
also  she  was  pleased. 

"What  kind  of  a  light?"  she  asked. 

But  he  was  shy,  and  did  not  say  any  more.  So  the  moment 
passed  for  this  time.  And  gradually  a  feeling  of  sorrow  came 
over  her. 

"My  life  is  unfulfilled,"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  he  answered  briefly,  not  wanting  to  hear  this. 

"And  I  feel  as  if  nobody  could  ever  really  love  me,"  she 
said. 

But  he  did  not  answer. 

"You  think,  don't  you,"  she  said  slowly,  "that  I  only  want 
physical  things?  It  isn't  true.  I  want  you  to  serve  my 
spirit." 

"I  know  you  do.  I  know  you  don't  want  physical  things 
by  themselves. — But,  I  want  you  to  give  me — to  give  your 
spirit  to  me — that  golden  light  which  is  you — which  you  don't 
know — give  it  me — " 

After  a  moment's  silence  she  replied: 

"But  how  can  I,  you  don't  love  me!  You  only  want  your 
own  ends.  You  don't  want  to  serve  me,  and  yet  you  want 
me  to  serve  you.     It  is  so  one-sided!" 

It  was  a  great  effort  to  him  to  maintain  this  conversation, 
and  to  press  for  the  thing  he  wanted  from  her,  the  surrender 
of  her  spirit. 

"It  is  different,"  he  said.  "The  two  kinds  of  service  are 
so  different.  I  serve  you  in  another  way — not  through  your- 
self— somewhere  else.  But  I  want  us  to  be  together  without 
bothering  about  ourselves — to  be  really  together  because  we 
are  together,  as  if  it  were  a  phenomenon,  not  a  thing  we  have 
to  maintain  by  our  own  effort." 

"No,"  she  said,  pondering.  "You  are  just  egocentric. — 
You  never  have  any  enthusiasm,  you  never  come  out  with 
any  spark  towards  me.  You  want  yourself,  really,  and  your 
own  affairs.     And  you  want  me  just  to  be  there,  to  serve  you." 


278  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

But  this  only  made  him  shut  off  from  her. 

"Ah  well,"  he  said,  "words  make  no  matter,  any  way. 
The  thing  is  between  us,  or  it  isn't." 

"You  don't  even  love  me,"  she  cried. 

"I  do,"  he  said  angrily.  "But  I  want — "  His  mind  saw 
again  the  lovely  golden  light  of  spring  transfused  through  her 
eyes,  as  through  some  wonderful  window.  And  he  wanted 
her  to  be  with  him  there,  in  this  world  of  proud  indifference. 
But  what  was  the  good  of  telling  her  he  wanted  this  company 
in  proud  indifference.  What  was  the  good  of  talking,  any 
way?  It  must  happen  beyond  the  sound  of  words.  It  was 
merely  ruinous  to  try  to  work  her  by  conviction.  This  was 
a  paradisal  bird  that  could  never  be  netted,  it  must  fly  by 
itself  to  the  heart. 

"I  always  think  I  am  going  to  be  loved — and  then  I  am 
let  down.  You  don't  love  me,  you  know.  You  don't  want 
to  serve  me.     You  only  want  yourself." 

A  shiver  of  rage  went  over  his  veins,  at  this  repeated:  "You 
don't  want  to  serve  me."  All  the  paradisal  disappeared  from 
him. 

"No,"  he  said,  irritated,  "I  don't  want  to  serve  you,  be- 
cause there  is  nothing  there  to  serve.  What  you  want  me  to 
serve,  is  nothing,  mere  nothing.  It  isn't  even  you,  it  is  your 
mere  female  quality.  And  I  wouldn't  give  a  straw  for  your 
female  ego — it's  a  rag  doll." 

"Ha!"  she  laughed  in  mockery.  "That's  all  you  think  of 
me,  is  it?  And  then  you  have  the  impudence  to  say  you 
love  me!" 

She  rose  in  anger,  to  go  home. 

"You  want  the  paradisal  unknowing,"  she  said,  turning 
round  on  him  as  he  still  sat  half-visible  in  the  shadow.  "I 
know  what  that  means,  thank  you.  You  want  me  to  be  your 
thing,  never  to  criticise  you  or  to  have  anything  to  say  for 
myself.  You  want  me  to  be  a  mere  thing  for  you !  No  thank 
you!  //  you  want  that,  there  are  plenty  of  women  who  will 
give  it  to  you.  There  are  plenty  of  women  who  will  lie  down 
for  you  to  walk  over  them — go  to  them  then,  if  that's  what 
you  want — go  to  them." 

"No,"  he  said,  outspoken  with  anger.      "I  want  you  to 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  279 

drop  your  assertive  will,  your  frightened  apprehensive  self- 
insistence,  that  is  what  I  want.  I  want  you  to  trust  yourself 
so  implicitly,  that  you  can  let  yourself  go." 

"Let  myself  go!"  she  re-echoed  in  mockery.  "7  can  let 
myself  go,  easily  enough.  It  is  you  who  can't  let  yourself 
go,  it  is  you  who  hang  on  to  yourself  as  if  it  were  your  only 
treasure.  You — you  are  the  Sunday  School  teacher.  You — 
you  preacher!" 

The  amount  of  truth  that  was  in  this  made  him  stiff  and 
unheeding  of  her. 

"I  don't  mean  let  yourself  go  in  the  Dionysic  ecstatic 
way,"  he  said.  "I  know  you  can  do  that.  But  I  hate  ecs- 
tasy, Dionysic  or  any  other.  It's  like  going  round  in  a  squirrel 
cage.  I  want  you  not  to  care  about  yourself,  just  to  be  there 
and  not  to  care  about  yourself,  not  to  insist — be  glad  and  sure 
and  indifferent." 

"Who  insists?"  she  mocked.  "Who  is  it  that  keeps  on 
insisting?     It  isn't  me." 

There  was  weary,  mocking  bitterness  in  her  voice.  He 
was  silent  for  some  time. 

"I  know,"  he  said.  "While  ever  either  of  us  insists  to  the 
other,  we  are  all  wrong.  But  there  we  are,  the  accord  doesn't 
come." 

They  sat  in  stillness  under  the  shadow  of  the  trees  by  the 
bank.  The  night  was  white  around  them,  they  were  in  the 
darkness,  barely  conscious. 

Gradually,  the  stillness  and  peace  came  over  them.  She 
put  her  hand  tentatively  on  his.  Their  hands  clasped  softly 
and  silently,  in  peace. 

"Do  you  really  love  me?"  she  said. 

He  laughed. 

"I  call  that  your  war-cry,"  he  replied,  amused. 

"Why?"  she  cried,  amused  and  really  wondering. 

"Your  insistence.  Your  war-cry — 'A  Brangwen,  A  Brang- 
wen,' — an  old  battle-cry.  Yours  is  'Do  you  love  me? — Yield 
knave,  or  die.'  " 

"No,"  she  said,  pleading,  "not  like  that.  Not  like  that. 
But  I  must  know  that  you  love  me,  mustn't  I?" 

"Well  then,  know  it  and  have  done  with  it." 


280  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"But  do  you?" 

"Yes,  I  do.  I  love  you,  and  I  know  it's  final.  It  is  final, 
so  why  say  any  more  about  it?" 

She  was  silent  for  some  moments,  in  delight  and  doubt. 

"Are  you  sure?"  she  said,  nestling  happily  near  to  him. 

"Quite  sure — so  now  have  done — accept  it  and  have  done." 

She  was  nestled  quite  close  to  him. 

"Have  done  with  what?"  she  murmured,  happily. 

"With  bothering,"  he  said. 

She  clung  nearer  to  him.  He  held  her  close,  and  kissed 
her  softly,  gently.  It  was  such  peace  and  heavenly  freedom, 
just  to  fold  her  and  kiss  her  gently,  and  not  to  have  any 
thoughts  or  any  desires  or  any  will,  just  to  be  still  with  her, 
to  be  perfectly  still  and  together,  in  a  peace  that  was  not 
sleep,  but  content  in  bliss.  To  be  content  in  bliss,  without 
desire  or  insistence  anywhere,  this  was  heaven :  to  be  together 
in  happy  stillness. 

For  a  long  time  she  nestled  to  him,  and  he  kissed  her  softly, 
her  hair,  her  face,  her  ears,  gently,  softly,  like  dew  falling. 
But  this  warm  breath  on  her  ears  disturbed  her  again,  kindled 
the  old  destructive  fires.  She  cleaved  to  him,  and  he  could 
feel  his  blood  changing  like  quicksilver. 

"But  we'll  be  still,  shall  we?"  he  said. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  as  if  submissively. 

And  she  continued  to  nestle  against  him. 

But  in  a  little  while  she  drew  away  and  looked  at  him. 

"I  must  be  going  home,"  she  said. 

"Must  you? — how  sad,"  he  replied. 

She  leaned  forward  and  put  up  her  mouth  to  be  kissed. 

"Are  you  really  sad?"  she  murmured,  smiling. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  wish  we  could  stay  as  we  were,  always." 

"Always!  Do  you?"  she  murmured,  as  he  kissed  her. 
And  then,  out  of  a  full  throat,  she  crooned,  "Kiss  me!  Kiss 
me!"  And  she  cleaved  close  to  him.  He  kissed  her  many 
times.  But  he,  too,  had  his  idea  and  his  will.  He  wanted 
only  gentle  communion,  no  other,  no  passion  now.  So  that 
soon  she  drew  away,  put  on  her  hat  and  went  home. 

The  next  day,  however,  he  felt  wistful  and  yearning.  He 
thought  he  had  been  wrong,  perhaps.     Perhaps  he  had  been 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  281 

wrong  to  go  to  her  with  an  idea  of  what  he  wanted.  Was  it 
really  only  an  idea,  or  was  it  the  interpretation  of  a  pro- 
found yearning?  If  the  latter,  how  was  it  he  was  always 
talking  about  sensual  fulfilment?  The  two  did  not  agree  very 
well. 

Suddenly  he  found  himself  face  to  face  with  a  situation. 
It  was  as  simple  as  this:  fatally  simple.  On  the  one  hand,  he 
knew  he  did  not  want  a  further  sensual  experience — some- 
thing deeper,  darker,  than  ordinary  life  could  give.  He  re- 
membered the  African  fetishes  he  had  seen  at  Halliday's  so 
often.  There  came  back  to  him  one,  a  statuette  about  two 
feet  high,  a  tall,  slim,  elegant  figure  from  West  Africa,  in  dark 
wood,  glossy  and  suave.  It  was  a  woman,  with  hair  dressed 
high,  like  a  melon-shaped  dome.  He  remembered  her  vividly; 
she  was  one  of  his  soul's  intimates.  Her  body  was  long  and 
elegant,  her  face  was  crushed  tiny  like  a  beetle's,  she  had  rows 
of  round  heavy  collars,  like  a  column  of  quoits,  on  her  neck. 
He  remembered  her:  her  astonishing  cultured  elegance,  her 
diminished,  beetle  face,  the  astounding  long  elegant  body,  on 
short,  ugly  legs,  with  such  protuberant  buttocks,  so  weighty 
and  unexpected  below  her  slim  long  loins.  She  knew  what 
he  himself  did  not  know.  She  had  thousands  of  years  of 
purely  sensual,  purely  unspiritual  knowledge  behind  her.  It 
must  have  been  thousands  of  years  since  her  race  had  died, 
mystically:  that  is,  since  the  relation  between  the  senses  and 
the  outspoken  mind  had  broken,  leaving  the  experience  all  in 
one  sort,  mystically  sensual.  Thousands  of  years  ago,  that 
which  was  imminent  in  himself  must  have  taken  place  in 
these  Africans;  the  goodness,  the  holiness,  the  desire  for 
creation  and  productive  happiness  must  have  lapsed,  leaving 
the  single  impulse  for  knowledge  in  one  sort,  mindless,  pro- 
gressive knowledge  through  the  senses,  knowledge  arrested  and 
ending  in  the  senses,  mystic  knowledge  in  disintegration  and 
dissolution,  knowledge  such  as  the  beetles  have,  which  live 
purely  within  the  world  of  corruption  and  cold  dissolution. 
This  was  why  her  face  looked  like  a  beetle's;  this  was  why 
the  Egyptians  worshipped  the  ball-rolling  scarab;  because  of 
the  principle  of  knowledge  in  dissolution  and  corruption. 

There  is  a  long  way  we  can  travel,  after  the  death-break; 


282  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

after  that  point  when  the  soul  in  intense  suffering  breaks, 
breaks  away  from  its  organic  hold  like  a  leaf  that  falls.  We 
fall  from  the  connection  with  life  and  hope,  we  lapse  from 
pure  integral  being,  from  creation  and  liberty,  and  we  fall 
into  the  long,  long  African  process  of  purely  sensual  under- 
standing, knowledge  in  the  mystery  of  dissolution. 

He  realised  now  that  this  is  a  long  process— thousands  of 
years  it  takes,  after  the  death  of  the  creative  spirit.  He 
realised  that  there  were  great  mysteries  to  be  unsealed,  sen- 
sual, mindless,  dreadful  mysteries,  far  beyond  the  phallic  cult. 
How  far,  in  their  inverted  culture,  had  these  West  Africans 
gone  beyond  phallic  knowledge?  Very,  very  far.  Birkin 
recalled  again  the  female  figure:  the  elongated,  long,  long 
body,  the  curious  unexpected  heavy  buttocks,  the  long,  im- 
prisoned neck,  the  face  with  tiny  features  like  a  beetle's. 
This  was  far  beyond  any  phallic  knowledge,  sensual  subtle 
realities  far  beyond  the  scope  of  phallic  investigation. 

There  remained  this  way,  this  awful  African  process,  to  be 
fulfilled.  It  would  be  done  differently  by  the  white  races. 
The  white  races,  having  the  arctic  north  behind  them,  the 
vast  abstraction  of  ice  and  snow,  would  fulfil  a  mystery  of 
ice-destructive  knowledge,  snow-abstract  annihilation.  Where- 
as the  West  Africans,  controlled  by  the  burning  death-abstrac- 
tion of  the  Sahara,  had  been  fulfilled  in  sun-destruction,  the 
putrescent  mystery  of  sun-rays. 

Was  this  then  all  that  remained?  Was  there  left  now 
nothing  but  to  break  off  from  the  happy  creative  being,  was 
the  time  up?  Is  our  day  of  creative  life  finished?  Does  there 
remain  to  us  only  the  strange,  awful  afterwards  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  dissolution,  the  African  knowledge,  but  different  in 
us,  who  are  blond  and  blue-eyed  from  the  north? 

Birkin  thought  of  Gerald.  He  was  one  of  these  strange 
white  wonderful  demons  from  the  north,  fulfilled  in  the  de- 
structive frost  mystery.  And  was  he  fated  to  pass  away  in 
this  knowledge,  this  one  process  of  frost-knowledge,  death  by 
perfect  cold?  Was  he  a  messenger,  an  omen  of  the  universal 
dissolution  into  whiteness  and  snow? 

Birkin  was  frightened.  He  was  tired  too,  when  he  had 
reached  this  length  of  speculation.      Suddenly  his  strange, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  283 

strained  attention  gave  way,  he  could  not  attend  to  these 
mysteries  any  more.  There  was  another  way,  the  way  of 
freedom.  There  was  the  paradisal  entry  into  pure,  single 
being,  the  individual  soul  taking  precedence  over  love  and  de- 
sire for  union,  stronger  than  any  pangs  of  emotion,  a  lovely 
state  of  free-proud  singleness,  which  accepted  the  obligation 
of  the  permanent  connection  with  others,  and  with  the  others, 
submits  to  the  yoke  and  leash  of  love,  but  never  forfeits  its 
own  proud  individual  singleness,  even  while  it  loves  and 
yields. 

There  was  the  other  way,  the  remaining  way.  And  he 
must  run  to  follow  it.  He  thought  of  Ursula,  how  sensitive 
and  delicate  she  really  was,  her  skin  so  over-fine,  as  if  one 
skin  were  wanting.  She  was  really  so  marvellously  gentle 
and  sensitive.  Why  did  he  ever  forget  it?  He  must  go  to 
her  at  once.  He  must  ask  her  to  marry  him.  They  must 
marry  at  once,  and  so  make  a  definite  pledge,  enter  into  a 
definite  communion.  He  must  set  out  at  once  and  ask  her, 
this  moment.     There  was  no  moment  to  spare. 

He  drifted  on  swiftly  to  Beldover,  half-unconscious  of  his 
own  movement.  He  saw  the  town  on  the  slope  of  the  hill, 
not  straggling,  but  as  if  walled-in  with  the  straight,  final 
streets  of  miners'-dwellings,  making  a  great  square,  and  it 
looked  like  Jerusalem  to  his  fancy.  The  world  was  all  strange 
and  transcendent. 

Rosalind  opened  the  door  to  him.  She  started  slightly, 
as  a  young  girl  will,  and  said: 

"Oh,  I'll  tell  father." 

With  which  she  disappeared,  leaving  Birkin  in  the  hall, 
looking  at  some  reproductions  from  Picasso,  lately  introduced 
by  Gudrun.  He  was  admiring  the  almost  wizard,  sensuous 
apprehension  of  the  earth,  when  Will  Brangwen  appeared, 
rolling  down  his  shirt  sleeves. 

"Well,"  said  Brangwen,  "I'll  get  a  coat."  And  he,  too, 
disappeared  for  a  moment.  Then  he  returned,  and  opened 
the  door  of  the  drawing-room,  saying: 

"You  must  excuse  me,  I  was  just  doing  a  bit  of  work  in 
the  shed.     Come  inside,  will  you?" 

Birkin  entered  and  sat  down.      He  looked  at  the  bright, 


284  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

reddish  face  of  the  other  man,  at  the  narrow  brow  and  the 
very  bright  eyes,  and  at  the  rather  sensual  lips  that  unrolled 
wide  and  expansive  under  the  black  cropped  moustache.  How 
curious  it  was  that  this  was  a  human  being!  What  Brangwen 
thought  himself  to  be,  how  meaningless  it  was,  confronted  with 
the  reality  of  him.  Birkin  could  see  only  a  strange,  inexplic- 
able almost  patternless  collection  of  passions  and  desires  and 
suppressions  and  traditions  and  mechanical  ideas,  all  cast  un- 
fused  and  disunited  into  this  slender,  bright-faced  man  of 
nearly  fifty  years,  who  was  as  unresolved  now  as  he  was  at 
twenty,  and  as  uncreated.  How  could  he  be  the  parent  of 
Ursula,  when  he  was  not  created  himself.  He  was  not  a 
parent.  A  slip  of  living  flesh  had  been  transmitted  through 
him,  but  the  spirit  had  not  come  from  him.  The  spirit  had 
not  come  from  any  ancestor,  it  had  come  out  of  the  unknown. 
A  child  is  the  child  of  the  mystery,  or  it  is  uncreated. 

"The  weather's  not  so  bad  as  it  has  been,"  said  Brangwen, 
after  waiting  a  moment.  There  was  no  connection  between 
the  two  men. 

"No,"  said  Birkin.     "It  was  full  moon  two  days  ago." 

"Oh !    You  believe  in  the  moon  then,  affecting  the  weather?" 

"No,  I  don't  think  I  do.  I  don't  really  know  enough 
about  it." 

"You  know  what  they  say? — The  moon  and  the  weather 
may  change  together,  but  the  change  of  the  moon  won't 
change  the  weather." 

"Is  that  it?"  said  Birkin.      "I  hadn't  heard  it." 

There  was  a  pause.      Then  Birkin  said: 

"Am  I  hindering  you?  I  called  to  see  Ursula,  really.  Is 
she  at  home?" 

"I  don't  believe  she  is.  I  believe  she's  gone  to  the  library. 
I'll  just  see." 

Birkin  could  hear  him  enquiring  in  the  dining  room. 

"No,"  he  said,  coming  back.  "But  she  won't  be  long 
You  wanted  to  speak  to  her?" 

Birkin  looked  across  at  the  other  man  with  curious  calm, 
clear  eyes. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,"  he  said,  "I  wanted  to  ask  her  to 
marry  me." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  285 

A  point  of  light  came  on  the  golden-brown  eyes  of  the 
elder  man. 

"O-oh?"  he  said,  looking  at  Birkin,  then  dropping  his  eyes 
before  the  calm,  steadily  watching  look  of  the  other:  "Was 
she  expecting  you,  then?" 

"No,"  said  Birkin. 

"No? — I  didn't  know  anything  of  this  sort  was  on  foot." 
Brangwen  smiled  awkwardly. 

Birkin  looked  back  at  him,  and  said  to  himself:  "I  won- 
der why  it  should  be  'on  foot'!"     Aloud  he  said: 

"No,  it's  perhaps  rather  sudden."  At  which,  thinking 
of  his  relationship  with  Ursula,  he  added,  "but  I  don't 
know — " 

"Quite  sudden,  is  it? — Oh!"  said  Brangwen,  rather  baffled 
and  annoyed. 

"In  one  way,"  replied  Birkin,  "not  in  another." 

There  was  a  moment's  pause,  after  which  Brangwen  said: 

"Well,  she  pleases  herself." 

"Oh  yes!"  said  Birkin,  calmly. 

A  vibration  came  into  Brangwen's  strong  voice,  as  he 
replied: 

"Though  I  shouldn't  want  her  to  be  in  too  big  a  hurry, 
either.  It's  no  good  looking  round  afterwards,  when  it's  too 
late." 

"Oh,  it  need  never  be  too  late,"  said  Birkin,  "as  far  as 
that  goes." 

"How  do  you  mean?"  asked  the  father. 

"If  one  repents  being  married,  the  marriage  is  at  an  end," 
said  Birkin. 

"You  think  so?" 

"Yes." 

"Ay,  well  that  may  be  your  way  of  looking  at  it." 

Birkin,  in  silence,  thought  to  himself:  "So  it  may.  As 
for  your  way  of  looking  at  it,  William  Brangwen,  it  needs  a 
little  explaining." 

"I  suppose,"  said  Brangwen,  "you  know  what  sort  of  peo- 
ple we  are?     What  sort  of  a  bringing-up  she's  had?" 

"  'She',"  thought  Birkin  to  himself,  remembering  his 
childhood's  corrections,  "is  the  cat's  mother." 


286  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Do  I  know  what  sort  of  a  bringing-up  she's  had?"  he 
said  aloud. 

He  seemed  to  annoy  Brangwen  intentionally. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "she's  had  everything  that's  right  for  a 
girl  to  have — as  far  as  possible,  as  far  as  we  could  give  it 
her." 

"I'm  sure  she  has,"  said  Birkin,  which  caused  a  perilous 
full-stop.  The  father  was  becoming  exasperated.  There  was 
something  naturally  irritant  to  him  in  Birkin's  mere  presence. 

"And  I  don't  want  to  see  her  going  back  on  it  all,"  he  said, 
in  a  clanging  voice. 

"Why?"  said  Birkin. 

This  monosyllable  exploded  in  Brangwen's  brain  like  a 
shot. 

"Why?  I  don't  believe  in  your  new-fangled  ways  and 
new-fangled  ideas — in  and  out  like  a  frog  in  a  gallipot.  It 
would  never  do  for  me." 

Birkin  watched  him  with  steady  emotionless  eyes.  The 
radical  antagonism  in  the  two  men  was  rousing. 

"Yes,  but  are  my  ways  and  ideas  new-fangled?"  asked 
Birkin. 

"Are  they?"  Brangwen  caught  himself  up.  "I'm  not 
speaking  of  you  in  particular,"  he  said.  "What  I  mean  is 
that  my  children  have  been  brought  up  to  think  and  do  ac- 
cording to  the  religion  I  was  brought  up  in  myself,  and  I 
don't  want  to  see  them  going  away  from  that." 

There  was  a  dangerous  pause. 

"And  beyond  that?"  asked  Birkin. 

The  father  hesitated,  he  was  in  a  nasty  position. 

"Eh?  What  do  you  mean?  All  I  want  to  say  is  that  my 
daughter" — he  tailed  off  into  silence,  overcome  by  futility. 
He  knew  that  in  some  way  he  was  off  the  track. 

"Of  course,"  said  Birkin,  "I  don't  want  to  hurt  anybody 
or  influence  anybody.     Ursula  does  exactly  as  she  pleases." 

There  was  a  complete  silence,  because  of  the  utter  failure 
in  mutual  understanding.  Birkin  felt  bored.  Her  father  was 
not  a  coherent  human  being,  he  was  a  roomful  of  old  echoes. 
The  eyes  of  the  younger  man  rested  on  the  face  of  the  elder. 
Brangwen  looked  up,  and  saw  Birkin  looked  at  him.      His 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  287 

face  was  covered  with  inarticulate  anger  and  humiliation  and 
sense  of  inferiority  in  strength. 

"And  as  for  beliefs,  that's  one  thing,"  he  said.  "But  I'd 
rather  see  my  daughters  dead  to-morrow  than  that  they 
should  be  at  the  beck  and  call  of  the  first  man  that  likes  to 
come  and  whistle  for  them." 

A  queer,  painful  light  came  into  Birkin's  eyes. 

"As  to  that,"  he  said,  "I  only  know  that  it's  much  more 
likely  that  it's  I  who  am  at  the  beck  and  call  of  the  woman, 
than  she  at  mine." 

Again  there  was  a  pause.  The  father  was  somewhat  be- 
wildered. 

"I  know,"  he  said,  "she'll  please  herself — she  always  has 
done.  I've  done  my  best  for  them,  but  that  doesn't  matter. 
They've  got  themselves  to  please,  and  if  they  can  help  it 
they'll  please  nobody  but  themselves.  But  she's  a  right  to 
consider  her  mother,  and  me  as  well — ." 

Brangwen  was  thinking  his  own  thoughts. 

"And  I  tell  you  this  much,  I  would  rather  bury  them,  than 
see  them  getting  into  a  lot  of  loose  ways  such  as  you  see 
everywhere  nowadays. — I'd  rather  bury  them — " 

"Yes  but,  you  see,"  said  Birkin  slowly,  rather  wearily, 
bored  again  by  this  new  turn,  "they  won't  give  either  you  or 
me  the  chance  to  bury  them,  because  they're  not  to  be  buried." 

Brangwen  looked  at  him  in  a  sudden  flare  of  impotent 
anger. 

"Now,  Mr.  Birkin,"  he  said,  "I  don't  know  what  you've 
come  here  for,  and  I  don't  know  what  you're  asking  for.  But 
my  daughters  are  my  daughters — and  it's  my  business  to  look 
after  them  while  I  can." 

Birkin's  brows  knitted  suddenly,  his  eyes  concentrated  in 
mockery.  But  he  remained  perfectly  stiff  and  still.  There 
was  a  pause. 

"I've  nothing  against  your  marrying  Ursula,"  Brangwen 
began  at  length.  "It's  got  nothing  to  do  with  me,  she'll  do 
as  she  likes,  me  or  no  me." 

Birkin  turned  away,  looking  out  of  the  window  and  letting 
go  his  consciousness.  After  all,  what  good  was  this?  It  was 
hopeless  to  keep  it  up.      He  would  sit  on  till  Ursula  came 


288  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

home,  then  speak  to  her,  then  go  away.  He  would  not  accept 
trouble  at  the  hands  of  her  father.  It  was  all  unnecessary, 
and  he  himself  need  not  have  provoked  it. 

The  two  men  sat  in  complete  silence,  Birkin  almost  un- 
conscious of  his  own  whereabouts.  He  had  come  to  ask  her 
to  marry  him — well,  then,  he  would  wait  on,  and  ask  her.  As 
for  what  she  said,  whether  she  accepted  or  not,  he  did  not 
think  about  it.  He  would  say  what  he  had  come  to  say, 
and  that  was  all  he  was  conscious  of.  He  accepted  the  com- 
plete insignificance  of  this  household,  for  him.  But  every- 
thing now  was  as  if  fated.  He  could  see  one  thing  ahead,  and 
no  more.  From  the  rest,  he  was  absolved  entirely  for  the 
time  being.  It  had  to  be  left  to  fate  and  chance  to  resolve 
the  issues. 

At  length  they  heard  the  gate.  They  saw  her  coming  up 
the  steps  with  a  bundle  of  books  under  her  arm.  Her  face 
was  bright  and  abstracted  as  usual,  with  the  abstraction,  that 
look  of  being  not  quite  there,  not  quite  present  to  the  facts  of 
reality,  that  galled  her  father  so  much.  She  had  a  madden- 
ing faculty  of  assuming  a  light  of  her  own,  which  excluded  the 
reality,  and  within  which  she  looked  radiant  as  if  in  sun- 
shine. 

They  heard  her  go  into  the  dining  room,  and  drop  her  arm- 
ful of  books  on  the  table. 

"Did  you  bring  me  that  Girl's  Own?"  cried  Rosalind. 

"Yes,  I  brought  it.  But  I  forgot  which  one  it  was  you 
wanted." 

"You  would,"  cried  Rosalind  angrily. — "It's  right  for  a 
wonder." 

Then  they  heard  her  say  something  in  a  lowered  tone. 

"Where?"  cried  Ursula. 

Again  her  sister's  voice  was  muffled. 

Brangwen  opened  the  door,  and  called,  in  his  strong, 
brazen  voice: 

"Ursula." 

She  appeared  in  a  moment,  wearing  her  hat. 

"Oh,  how  do  you  do?"  she  cried,  seeing  Birkin,  and  all 
dazzled  as  if  taken  by  surprise.  He  wondered  at  her,  know- 
ing she  was  aware  of  his  presence.     She  had  her  queer,  radiant, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  289 

breathless  manner,  as  if  confused  by  the  actual  world,  unreal 
to  it,  having  a  complete  bright  world  of  her  self  alone. 

"Have  I  interrupted  a  conversation?"  she  asked. 

"No,  only  a  complete  silence,"  said  Birkin. 

"Oh,"  said  Ursula,  vaguely,  absent.  Their  presence  was 
not  vital  to  her,  she  was  withheld,  she  did  not  take  them  in. 
It  was  a  subtle  insult  that  never  failed  to  exasperate  her 
father. 

"Mr.  Birkin  came  to  speak  to  you,  not  to  me,"  said  her 
father. 

"Oh,  did  he?"  she  exclaimed  vaguely,  as  if  it  did  not  con- 
cern her.  Then,  recollecting  herself,  she  turned  to  him  rather 
radiantly,  but  still  quite  superficially,  and  said:  "Was  it  any- 
thing special?" 

"I  hope  so,"  he  said,  ironically. 

"To  propose  to  you,  according  to  all  accounts,"  said  her 
father. 

"Oh,"  said  Ursula. 

"Oh,"  mocked  her  father,  imitating  her.  "Have  you 
nothing  more  to  say?" 

She  winced  as  if  violated. 

"Did  you  really  come  to  propose  to  me?"  she  asked  of 
Birkin,  as  if  it  were  a  joke. 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "I  suppose  I  came  to  propose."  He 
seemed  to  fight  shy  of  the  last  word. 

"Did  you?"  she  cried,  with  her  vague  radiance.  He  might 
have  been  saying  anything  whatsoever.     She  seemed  pleased. 

"Yes,"  he  answered.  "I  wanted  to — I  wanted  you  to 
agree  to  marry  me." 

She  looked  at  him.  His  eyes  were  flickering  with  mixed 
lights,  wanting  something  of  her,  yet  not  wanting  it.  She 
shrank  a  little,  as  if  she  were  exposed  to  his  eyes,  and  as  if 
it  were  a  pain  to  her.  She  darkened,  her  soul  clouded  over, 
she  turned  aside.  She  had  been  driven  out  of  her  own  radiant, 
single  world.  And  she  dreaded  contact,  it  was  almost  un- 
natural to  her  at  these  times. 

"Yes,"  she  said  vaguely,  in  a  doubting,  absent  voice. 

Birkin's  heart  contracted  swiftly,  in  a  sudden  fire  of  bit- 
terness.     It  all  meant  nothing  to  her.      He  had  been  mis- 


290  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

taken  again.  She  was  in  some  self-satisfied  world  of  her 
own.  He  and  his  hopes  were  accidentals,  violations  to  her. 
It  drove  her  father  to  a  pitch  of  mad  exasperation.  He  had 
had  to  put  up  with  this  all  his  life,  from  her. 

"Well,  what  do  you  say?"  he  cried. 

She  winced.  Then  she  glanced  down  at  her  father,  half- 
frightened,  and  she  said: 

"I  didn't  speak,  did  I?"  as  if  she  were  afraid  she  might 
have  committed  herself. 

"No,"  said  her  father,  exasperated.  "But  you  needn't 
look  like  an  idiot.     You've  got  your  wits,  haven't  you?" 

She  ebbed  away  in  silent  hostility. 

"I've  got  my  wits,  what  does  that  mean?"  she  repeated, 
in  a  sullen  voice  of  antagonism. 

"You  heard  what  was  asked  you,  didn't  you?"  cried  her 
father  in  anger. 

"Of  course  I  heard." 

"Well  then,  can't  you  answer?"  thundered  her  father. 

"Why  should  I?" 

At  the  impertinence  of  this  retort,  he  went  stiff.  But  he 
said  nothing. 

"No,"  said  Birkin,  to  help  out  the  occasion,  "there's  no 
need  to  answer  at  once.     You  can  say  when  you  like." 

Her  eyes  flashed  with  a  powerful  light. 

"Why  should  I  say  anything?"  she  cried.  "You  do  this 
off  your  own  bat,  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  me.  Why  do  you 
both  want  to  bully  me?" 

"Bully  you?  Bully  you?"  cried  her  father,  in  bitter, 
rancorous  anger.  "Bully  you?  Why,  it's  a  pity  you  can't 
be  bullied  into  some  sense  and  decency.  Bully  you!  You'll 
see  to  that,  you  self-willed  creature." 

She  stood  suspended  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  her  face 
glimmering  and  dangerous.  She  was  .set  in  satisfied  defiance. 
Birkin  looked  up  at  her.      He,  too,  was  angry. 

"But  no  one  is  bullying  you,"  he  said,  in  a  very  soft,  dan- 
gerous voice  also. 

"Oh  yes,"  she  cried.  "You  both  want  to  force  me  into 
something." 

"That  is  an  illusion  of  yours,"  he  said  ironically. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  291 

"Illusion!"  cried  her  father.  "A  self-opinionated  fool, 
that's  what  she  is." 

Birkin  rose,  saying: 

"However,  we'll  leave  it  for  the  time  being." 

And  without  another  word,  he  walked  out  of  the  house. 

"You  fool! — You  fool!"  cried  her  father  to  her,  with 
extreme  bitterness.  She  left  the  room,  and  went  upstairs, 
singing  to  herself.  But  she  was  terribly  fluttered,  as  after 
some  dreadful  fight.  From  her  window,  she  could  see  Birkin 
going  up  the  road.  He  went  in  such  a  blithe  drift  of  rage, 
that  her  mind  wondered  over  him.  He  was  ridiculous,  but 
she  was  afraid  of  him.  She  was  as  if  escaped  from  some 
danger. 

Her  father  sat  below,  powerless  in  humiliation  and  chagrin. 
It  was  as  if  he  were  possessed  with  all  the  devils,  after  one  of 
these  unaccountable  conflicts  with  Ursula.  He  hated  her  as 
if  his  only  reality  were  in  hating  her  to  the  last  degree.  He 
had  all  hell  in  his  heart.  But  he  went  away,  to  escape  him- 
self. He  knew  he  must  despair,  yield,  give  in  to  despair,  and 
have  done. 

Ursula's  face  closed,  she  completed  herself  against  them 
all.  Recoiling  upon  herself,  she  became  hard  and  self-com- 
pleted, like  a  jewel.  She  was  bright  and  invulnerable,  quite 
free  and  happy,  perfectly  liberated  in  her  self-possession.  Her 
father  had  to  learn  not  to  see  her  blithe  obliviousness,  or  it 
would  have  sent  him  mad.  She  was  so  radiant  with  all 
things,  in  her  possession  of  perfect  hostility. 

She  would  go  on  now  for  days  like  this,  in  this  bright, 
frank  state  of  seemingly  pure  spontaneity,  so  essentially  ob- 
livious of  the  existence  of  anything  but  herself,  but  so  ready 
and  facile  in  her  interest.  Ah,  it  was  a  bitter  thing  for  a  man 
to  be  near  her,  and  her  father  cursed  his  fatherhood.  But  he 
must  learn  not  to  see  her,  not  to  know. 

She  was  perfectly  stable  in  resistance  when  she  was  in  this 
state:  so  bright  and  radiant  and  attractive  in  her  pure  oppo- 
sition, so  very  pure,  and  yet  mistrusted  by  everybody,  dis- 
liked on  every  hand.  It  was  her  voice,  curiously  clear  and 
repellant,  that  gave  her  away.  Only  Gudrun  was  in  accord 
with  her.      It  was  at  these  times  that  the  intimacy  between 


292  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

the  two  sisters  was  most  complete,  as  if  their  intelligence  were 
one.  They  felt  a  strong,  bright  bond  of  understanding  be- 
tween them,  surpassing  everything  else.  And  during  all  these 
days  of  blind,  bright  abstraction  and  intimacy  of  his  two 
daughters,  the  father  seemed  to  breathe  an  air  of  death,  as  if 
he  were  destroyed  in  his  very  being.  He  was  irritable  to 
madness,  he  could  not  rest,  his  daughters  seemed  to  be  de- 
stroying him.  But  he  was  inarticulate  and  helpless  against 
them.  He  was  forced  to  breathe  the  air  of  his  own  death. 
He  cursed  them  in  his  soul,  and  only  wanted  that  they  should 
be  removed  from  him. 

They  continued  radiant  in  their  easy  female  transcendency, 
beautiful  to  look  at.  They  exchanged  confidences,  they  were 
intimate  in  their  revelations  to  the  last  degree,  giving  each 
other  at  last  every  secret.  They  withheld  nothing,  they  told 
everything,  till  they  were  over  the  border  of  evil.  And  they 
armed  each  other  with  knowledge,  they  extracted  the  subtlest 
flavours  from  the  apple  of  knowledge.  It  was  curious  how 
their  knowledge  was  complementary,  that  of  each  to  that  of 
the  other. 

Ursula  saw  her  men  as  sons,  pitied  their  yearning  and 
admired  their  courage,  and  wondered  over  them  as  a  mother 
wonders  over  her  child,  with  a  certain  delight  in  their  novelty. 
But  to  Gudrun,  they  were  the  opposite  camp.  She  feared  them 
and  despised  them,  and  respected  their  activities  even  over- 
much. 

"Of  course,"  she  said  easily,  "there  is  a  quality  of  life  in 
Birkin  which  is  quite  remarkable.  There  is  an  extraordinary 
rich  spring  of  life  in  him,  really  amazing,  the  way  he  can  give 
himself  to  things.  But  there  are  so  many  things  in  life  that 
he  simply  doesn't  know.  Either  he  is  not  aware  of  their 
existence  at  all,  or  he  dismisses  them  as  merely  negligible — 
things  which  are  vital  to  the  other  person.  In  a  way,  he  is 
not  clever  enough,  he  is  too  intense  in  spots." 

"Yes,"  cried  Ursula,  "too  much  of  a  preacher.  He  is 
really  a  priest." 

"Exactly!  He  can't  hear  what  anybody  else  has  to  say — 
he  simply  cannot  hear.     His  own  voice  is  so  loud." 

"Yes.     He  cries  you  down." 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  293 

"He  cries  you  down,"  repeated  Gudrun.  "And  by  mere 
force  of  violence.  And,  of  course,  it  is  hopeless.  Nobody  is 
convinced  by  violence.  It  makes  talking  to  him  impossible, 
and  living  with  him  I  should  think  would  be  more  than  im- 
possible." 

"You  don't  think  one  could  live  with  him?"  asked  Ursula. 

"I  think  it  would  be  too  wearing,  too  exhausting.  One 
would  be  shouted  down  every  time,  and  rushed  into  his  way 
without  any  choice.  He  would  want  to  control  you  entirely. 
He  cannot  allow  that  there  is  any  other  mind  than  his  own. 
And  then  the  real  clumsiness  of  his  mind,  is  its  lack  of  self- 
criticism.     No,  I  think  it  would  be  perfectly  intolerable." 

"Yes,"  assented  Ursula  vaguely.  She  only  half  agreed 
with  Gudrun.  "The  nuisance  is,"  she  said,  "that  one  would 
find  almost  any  man  intolerable  after  a  fortnight." 

"It's  perfectly  dreadful,"  said  Gudrun.  "But  Birkin — he 
is  too  positive.  He  couldn't  bear  it  if  you  called  your  soul 
your  own.      Of  him  that  is  strictly  true." 

"Yes,"  said  Ursula.     "You  must  have  his  soul." 

"Exactly!  And  what  can  you  conceive  more  deadly?" 
This  was  all  so  true,  that  Ursula  felt  jarred  to  the  bottom  of 
her  soul  with  ugly  distaste. 

She  went  on,  with  the  discord  jarring  and  jolting  through 
her,  in  the  most  barren  of  misery. 

Then  there  started  a  revulsion  from  Gudrun.  She  fin- 
ished life  off  so  thoroughly,  she  made  things  so  ugly  and  so 
final.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  even  if  it  were  as  Gudrun  said, 
about  Birkin,  other  things  were  true  as  well.  But  Gudrun 
would  draw  two  lines  under  him  and  cross  him  out  like  an 
account  that  is  settled.  There  he  was,  summed  up,  paid  for, 
settled,  done  with.  And  it  was  such  a  lie.  This  finality 
of  Gudrun's,  this  dispatching  of  people  and  things  in  a  sen- 
tence, it  was  all  such  a  lie.  Ursula  began  to  revolt  from  her 
sister. 

One  day  as  they  were  walking  along  the  lane,  they  saw  a 
robin  sitting  on  the  top  twig  of  a  bush,  singing  shrilly.  The 
sisters  stood  to  look  at  him.  An  ironical  smile  flickered  on 
Gudrun's  face. 

"Doesn't  he  feel  important?"  smiled  Gudrun. 


294  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Doesn't  he!"  exclaimed  Ursula,  with  a  little  ironical 
grimace.     "Isn't  he  a  little  Lloyd  George  of  the  air?" 

"Isn't  he!  Little  Lloyd  Georges  of  the  air!  That's  just 
what  they  are,"  cried  Gudrun  in  delight.  Then  for  days, 
Ursula  saw  the  persistent,  obtrusive  birds  as  stout,  short 
politicians  lifting  up  their  voices  from  the  platform,  little  men 
who  must  make  themselves  heard  at  any  cost. 

But  even  from  this  there  came  the  revulsion.  Some  yel- 
lowhammers  suddenly  shot  along  the  road  in  front  of  her. 
And  they  looked  to  her  so  uncanny  and  inhuman,  like  flaring 
yellow  barbs  shooting  through  the  air  on  some  weird,  living 
errand,  that  she  said  to  herself:  "After  all,  it  is  impudence  to 
call  them  little  Lloyd  Georges.  They  are  really  unknown  to 
us,  they  are  the  unknown  forces.  It  is  impudence  to  look  at 
them  as  if  they  were  the  same  as  human  beings.  They  are 
of  another  world.  How  stupid  anthropomorphism  is!  Gud- 
run is  really  impudent,  insolent,  making  herself  the  measure 
of  everything,  making  everything  come  down  to  human 
standards.  Rupert  is  quite  right,  human  beings  are  boring, 
painting  the  universe  with  their  own  image.  The  universe  is 
non-human,  thank  God."  It  seemed  to  her  irreverence,  de- 
structive of  all  true  life,  to  make  little  Lloyd  Georges  of  the 
birds.  It  was  such  a  lie  towards  the  robins,  and  such  a 
defamation.  Yet  she  had  done  it  herself.  But  under  Gud- 
run's  influence:  so  she  exonerated  herself. 

So  she  withdrew  away  from  Gudrun  and  from  that  which 
she  stood  for,  she  turned  in  spirit  towards  Birkin  again.  She 
had  not  seen  him  since  the  fiasco  of  his  proposal.  She  did 
not  want  to,  because  she  did  not  want  the  question  of  her 
acceptance  thrust  upon  her.  She  knew  what  Birkin  meant 
when  he  asked  her  to  marry  him;  vaguely,  without  putting 
it  into  speech,  she  knew.  She  knew  what  kind  of  love,  what 
kind  of  surrender  he  wanted.  And  she  was  not  at  all  sure 
that  this  was  the  kind  of  love  that  she  herself  wanted.  She 
was  not  at  all  sure  that  it  was  this  mutual  unison  in  separate- 
ness  that  she  wanted.  She  wanted  unspeakable  intimacies. 
She  wanted  to  have  him,  utterly,  finally  to  have  him  as  her 
own,  oh,  so  unspeakably,  in  intimacy.  To  drink  him  down — 
ah,  like  a  life-draught.      She  made  great  professions,  to  her- 


WOMEN  m  LOVE  235 

self,  of  her  willingness  to  warm  his  foot-soles  between  her 
breasts,  after  the  fashion  of  the  nauseous  Meredith  poem. 
But  only  on  condition  that  he,  her  lover,  loved  her  absolutely, 
with  complete  self -abandon.  And  subtly  enough,  she  knew 
he  would  never  abandon  himself  finally  to  her.  He  did  not 
believe  in  final  self-abandonment.  He  said  it  openly.  It 
was  his  challenge.  She  was  prepared  to  fight  him  for  it. 
For  she  believed  in  an  absolute  surrender  to  love.  She  be- 
lieved that  love  far  surpassed  the  individual.  He  said  the 
individual  was  more  than  love,  or  than  any  relationship. 
For  him,  the  bright,  single  soul  accepted  love  as  one  of  its 
conditions,  a  condition  of  its  own  equilibrium.  She  believed 
that  love  was  everything.  Man  must  render  himself  up  to 
her.  He  must  be  quaffed  to  the  dregs  by  her.  Let  him  be 
her  man  utterly,  and  she  in  return  would  be  his  humble  slave 
— whether  she  wanted  it  or  not. 


CHAPTER  XX 

AFTER  the  fiasco  of  the  proposal,  Birkin  had  hurried 
blindly  away  from  Beldover,  in  a  whirl  of  fury.  He 
felt  he  had  been  a  complete  fool,  that  the  whole  scene 
had  been  a  farce  of  the  first  water.  But  that  did  not  trouble 
him  at  all.  He  was  deeply,  mockingly  angry  that  Ursula  per- 
sisted always  in  this  old  cry:  "Why  do  you  want  to  bully 
me?",  and  in  her  bright,  insolent  abstraction. 

He  went  straight  to  Shortlands.  There  he  found  Gerald 
standing  with  his  back  to  the  fire,  in  the  library,  as  motion- 
less as  a  man  is,  who  is  completely  and  emptily  restless,  utterly 
hollow.  He  had  done  all  the  work  he  wanted  to  do — and  now 
there  was  nothing.  He  could  go  out  in  the  car,  he  could  run 
to  town.  But  he  did  not  want  to  go  out  in  the  car,  he  did 
not  want  to  run  to  town,  he  did  not  want  to  call  on  the  Thirl- 
bys.  He  was  suspended  motionless,  in  an  agony  of  inertia, 
like  a  machine  that  is  without  power. 

This  was  very  bitter  to  Gerald,  who  had  never  known  what 
boredom  was,  who  had  gone  from  activity  to  activity,  never 
at  a  loss.  Now,  gradually,  everything  seemed  to  be  stopping 
in  him.  He  did  not  want  any  more  to  do  the  things  that 
offered.  Something  dead  within  him  just  refused  to  respond 
to  any  suggestion.  He  cast  over  in  his  mind,  what  it  would 
be  possible  to  do,  to  save  himself  from  this  misery  of  noth- 
ingness, relieve  the  stress  of  this  hollowness.  And  there  were 
only  three  things  left,  that  would  rouse  him,  make  him  live. 
One  was  to  drink  or  smoke  hashish,  the  other  was  to  be  soothed 
by  Birkin,  and  the  third  was  woman.  And  there  was  no  one 
for  the  moment  to  drink  with.  Nor  was  there  a  woman. 
And  he  knew  Birkin  was  out.  So  there  was  nothing  to  do 
but  to  bear  the  stress  of  his  own  emptiness. 

When  he  saw  Birkin  his  face  lit  up  in  a  sudden,  wonderful 
smile. 

"By  God,  Rupert,"  he  said,  "I'd  just  come  to  the  con- 

296 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  297 

elusion  that  nothing  in  the  world  mattered  except  somebody 
to  take  the  edge  off  one's  being  alone:   the  right  somebody." 

The  smile  in  his  eyes  was  very  astonishing,  as  he  looked 
at  the  other  man.  It  was  the  pure  gleam  of  relief.  His  face 
was  pallid  and  even  haggard. 

"The  right  woman,  I  suppose  you  mean,"  said  Birkin 
spitefully. 

"Of  course,  for  choice.      Failing  that,  an  amusing  man." 

He  laughed  as  he  said  it.     Birkin  sat  down  near  the  fire. 

"What  were  you  doing?"  he  asked. 

"I?  Nothing.  I'm  in  a  bad  way  just  now,  everything's 
on  edge,  and  I  can  neither  work  nor  play.  I  don't  know 
whether  it's  a  sign  of  old  age,  I'm  sure." 

"You  mean  you  are  bored?" 

"Bored,  I  don't  know.  I  can't  apply  myself.  And  I  feel 
the  devil  is  either  very  present  inside  me,  or  dead." 

Birkin  glanced  up  and  looked  in  his  eyes. 

"You  should  try  hitting  something,"  he  said. 

Gerald  smiled. 

"Perhaps,"  he  said.  "So  long  as  it  was  something  worth 
hitting." 

"Quite!"  said  Birkin,  in  his  soft  voice.  There  was  a  long 
pause  during  which  each  could  feel  the  presence  of  the  other. 

"One  has  to  wait,"  said  Birkin. 

"Ah  God!     Waiting!     What  are  we  waiting  for?" 

"Some  old  Johnny  says  there  are  three  cures  for  ennui, 
sleep,  drink,  and  travel,"  said  Birkin. 

"All  cold  eggs,"  said  Gerald.  "In  sleep  you  dream,  in 
drink  you  curse,  and  in  travel  you  yell  at  a  porter.  No, 
work  and  love  are  the  two.  When  you're  not  at  work  you 
should  be  in  love." 

"Be  it  then,"  said  Birkin. 

"Give  me  the  object,"  said  Gerald.  "The  possibilities  of 
love  exhaust  themselves." 

"Do  they?     And  then  what?" 

"Then  you  die,"  said  Gerald. 

"So  you  ought,"  said  Birkin. 

"I  don't  see  it,"  replied  Gerald.  He  took  his  hands  out 
of  his  trousers  pockets,  and  reached  for  a  cigarette.     He  was 


298  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

tense  and  nervous.  He  lit  the  cigarette  over  a  lamp,  reach- 
ing forward  and  drawing  steadily.  He  was  dressed  for  dinner, 
as  usual  in  the  evening,  although  he  was  alone. 

"There's  a  third  one  even  to  your  two,"  said  Birkin. 
"Work,  love,  and  fighting.     You  forget  the  fight." 

"I  suppose  I  do,"  said  Gerald.  "Did  you  ever  do  any 
boxing?" 

"No,  I  don't  think  I  did,"  said  Birkin. 

"Ay."  Gerald  lifted  his  head  and  blew  the  smoke  slowly 
into  the  air. 

"Why?"  said  Birkin. 

"Nothing.  I  thought  we  might  have  a  round.  It  is  per- 
haps true,  that  I  want  something  to  hit.      It's  a  suggestion." 

"So  you  think  you  might  as  well  hit  me?"  said  Birkin. 

"You?  Well — !  Perhaps — !  In  a  friendly  kind  of  way, 
of  course." 

"Quite!"  said  Birkin,  bitingly. 

Gerald  stood  leaning  back  against  the  mantel-piece.  He 
looked  down  at  Birkin,  and  his  eyes  flashed  with  a  sort  of 
terror  like  the  eyes  of  a  stallion,  that  are  bloodshot  and  over- 
wrought, turned  glancing  backwards  in  a  stiff  terror. 

"I  feel  that  if  I  don't  watch  myself,  I  shall  find  myself 
doing  something  silly,"  he  said. 

"Why  not  do  it?"  said  Birkin  coldly. 

Gerald  listened  with  quick  impatience.  He  kept  glancing 
down  at  Birkin,  as  if  looking  for  something  from  the  other 
man. 

"I  used  to  do  some  Japanese  wrestling,"  said  Birkin.  "A 
Jap  lived  in  the  same  house  with  me  in  Heidelberg,  and  he 
taught  me  a  little.     But  I  was  never  much  good  at  it." 

"You  did!"  exclaimed  Gerald.  "That's  one  of  the  things 
I'd  never  even  seen  done.     You  mean  jiu-jitsu,  I  suppose?" 

"Yes.  But  I  am  no  good  at  those  things — they  don't 
interest  me." 

"They  don't?     They  do  me.     What's  the  start?" 

"I'll  show  you  what  I  can,  if  you  like,"  said  Birkin. 

"You  will?"  A  queer,  smiling  look  tightened  Gerald's 
face  for  a  moment,  as  he  said:  "Well,  I'd  like  it  very 
much." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  299 

"Then  we'll  try  jiu-jitsu.  Only  you  can't  do  much  in  a 
starched  shirt." 

"Then  let  us  strip,  and  do  it  properly.  Hold  a  minute." 
He  rang  the  bell,  and  waited  for  the  butler. 

"Bring  a  couple  of  sandwiches  and  a  syphon,"  he  said  to 
the  man,  "and  then  don't  trouble  me  any  more  to-night — or 
let  anybody  else." 

The  man  went.  Gerald  turned  to  Birkin  with  his  eyes 
lighted. 

"And  you  used  to  wrestle  with  a  Jap?"  he  said.  "Did 
you  strip?" 

"Sometimes." 

"You  did!     What  was  he  like  then,  as  a  wrestler?" 

"Good,  I  believe.  I  am  no  judge.  He  was  very  quick 
and  slippery  and  full  of  electric  fire.  It  is  a  remarkable  thing, 
what  a  curious  sort  of  fluid  force  they  seem  to  have  in  them, 
those  people — not  like  a  human  grip — like  a  polyp." 

Gerald  nodded. 

"I  should  imagine  so,"  he  said,  "to  look  at  them.  They 
repel  me,  rather." 

"Repel  and  attract,  both.  They  are  very  repulsive  when 
they  are  cold,  and  they  look  grey.  But  when  they  are  hot 
and  roused,  there  is  a  definite  attraction — a  curious  kind  of 
full  electric  fluid — like  eels." 

"Well — yes — probably. ' ' 

The  man  brought  in  the  tray  and  set  it  down. 

"Don't  come  in  any  more,"  said  Gerald. 

The  door  closed. 

"Well,  then,"  said  Gerald.  "Shall  we  strip  and  begin? 
Will  you  have  a  drink  first?" 

"No,  I  don't  want  one." 

"Neither  do  I." 

Gerald  fastened  the  door  and  pushed  the  furniture  aside. 
The  room  was  large,  there  was  plenty  of  space,  it  was  thickly 
carpeted.  Then  he  quickly  threw  off  his  clothes,  and  waited  for 
Birkin.  The  latter,  white  and  thin,  came  over  to  him.  Birkin  was 
more  a  presence  than  a  visible  object;  Gerald  was  aware  of  him 
completely,  but  not  really  visually.  Whereas  Gerald  himself 
was  concrete  and  noticeable,  a  piece  of  pure  final  substance. 


300  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Now,"  said  Birkin,  "I  will  show  you  what  I  learned,  and 
what  I  remember.  You  let  me  take  you  so — "  And  his 
hands  closed  on  the  naked  body  of  the  other  man.  In  another 
moment,  he  had  Gerald  swung  over  lightly  and  balanced  against 
his  knee,  head  downwards.  Relaxed,  Gerald  sprang  to  his 
feet  with  eyes  glittering. 

"That's  smart,"  he  said.     "Now  try  again." 

So  the  two  men  began  to  struggle  together.  They  were 
very  dissimilar.  Birkin  was  tall  and  narrow,  his  bones  were 
very  thin  and  fine.  Gerald  was  much  heavier  and  more 
plastic.  His  bones  were  strong  and  round,  his  limbs  were 
rounded,  all  his  contours  were  beautifully  and  fully  moulded. 
He  seemed  to  stand  with  a  proper,  rich  weight  on  the  face  of 
the  earth,  whilst  Birkin  seemed  to  have  the  centre  of  gravita- 
tion in  his  own  middle.  And  Gerald  had  a  rich,  frictional 
kind  of  strength,  rather  mechanical,  but  sudden  and  invinci- 
ble, whereas  Birkin  was  abstract  as  to  be  almost  intangible. 
He  impinged  invisibly  upon  the  other  man,  scarcely  seeming 
to  touch  him,  like  a  garment,  and  then  suddenly  piercing  in 
a  tense  fine  grip  that  seemed  to  penetrate  into  the  very  quick 
of  Gerald's  being. 

They  stopped,  they  discussed  methods,  they  practised 
grips  and  throws,  they  became  accustomed  to  each  other,  to 
each  other's  rhythm,  they  got  a  kind  of  mutual  physical  un- 
derstanding. And  then  again  they  had  a  real  struggle.  They 
seemed  to  drive  their  white  flesh  deeper  and  deeper  against 
each  other,  as  if  they  would  break  into  a  oneness.  Birkin  had 
a  great  subtle  energy,  that  would  press  upon  the  other  man 
with  an  uncanny  force,  weigh  him  like  a  spell  put  upon  him. 
Then  it  would  pass,  and  Gerald  would  heave  free,  with  white, 
heaving,  dazzling  movements. 

So  the  two  men  entwined  and  wrestled  with  each  other, 
working  nearer  and  nearer.  Both  were  white  and  clear,  but 
Gerald  flushed  smart  red  where  he  was  touched,  and  Birkin 
remained  white  and  tense.  He  seemed  to  penetrate  into 
Gerald's  more  solid,  more  diffuse  bulk,  to  interfuse  his  body 
through  the  body  of  the  other,  as  if  to  bring  it  subtly  into 
subjection,  always  seizing  with  some  rapid  necromantic  fore- 
knowledge every  motion  of  the  other  flesh,  converting  and 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  301 

counteracting  it,  playing  upon  the  limbs  and  trunk  of  Gerald 
like  some  hard  wind.  It  was  as  if  Birkin's  whole  physical 
intelligence  interpenetrated  into  Gerald's  body,  as  if  his  fine, 
sublimated  energy  entered  into  the  flesh  of  the  fuller  man, 
like  some  potency,  casting  a  fine  net,  a  prison,  through  the 
muscles  into  the  very  depths  of  Gerald's  physical  being. 

So  they  wrestled  swiftly,  rapturously,  intent  and  mindless 
at  last,  two  essential  white  figures  working  into  a  tighter, 
closer  oneness  of  struggle,  with  a  strange,  octopus-like  knotting 
and  flashing  of  limbs  in  the  subdued  light  of  the  room;  a 
tense  white  knot  of  flesh  gripped  in  silence  between  the  walls 
of  old  brown  books.  Now  and  again  came  a  sharp  gasp  of 
breath,  or  a  sound  like  a  sigh,  then  the  rapid  thudding  of 
movement  on  the  thickly  carpeted  floor,  then  the  strange 
sound  of  flesh  escaping  under  flesh.  Often,  in  the  white  in- 
terlaced knot  of  violent  living  being  that  swayed  silently, 
there  was  no  head  to  be  seen,  only  the  swift,  tight  limbs,  the 
solid  white  backs,  the  physical  junction  of  two  bodies  clinched 
into  oneness.  Then  would  appear  the  gleaming,  ruffled  head 
of  Gerald,  as  the  struggle  changed,  then  for  a  moment  the 
dun-coloured,  shadow-like  head  of  the  other  man  would  lift 
up  from  the  conflict,  the  eyes  wide  and  dreadful  and  sightless. 

At  length  Gerald  lay  back  inert  on  the  carpet,  his  breast 
rising  in  great  slow  panting,  whilst  Birkin  kneeled  over  him, 
almost  unconscious.  Birkin  was  much  more  exhausted.  He 
caught  little,  short  breaths,  he  could  scarcely  breathe  any 
more.  The  earth  seemed  to  tilt  and  sway,  and  a  complete 
darkness  was  coming  over  his  mind.  He  did  not  know  what 
happened.  He  slid  forward  quite  unconscious,  over  Gerald, 
and  Gerald  did  not  notice.  Then  he  was  half-conscious  again, 
aware  only  of  the  strange  tilting  and  sliding  of  the  world.  The 
world  was  sliding,  everything  was  sliding  off  into  the  dark- 
ness.    And  he  was  sliding  endlessly,  endlessly  away. 

He  came  to  consciousness  again,  hearing  an  immense  knock- 
ing outside.  What  could  be  happening,  what  was  it,  the  great 
hammer-stroke  resounding  through  the  house?  He  did  not 
know.  And  then  it  came  to  him  that  it  was  his  own  heart 
beating.  But  that  seemed  impossible,  the  noise  was  outside. 
No,  it  was  inside  himself,  it  was  his  own  heart.     And  the  beat- 


302  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

ing  was  painful,  so  strained,  surcharged.  He  wondered  if 
Gerald  heard  it.  He  did  not  know  whether  he  were  stand- 
ing or  lying  or  falling. 

When  he  realised  that  he  had  fallen  prostrate  upon  Gerald's 
body  he  wondered,  he  was  surprised.  But  he  sat  up,  steady- 
ing himself  with  his  hand  and  waiting  for  his  heart  to  become 
stiller  and  less  painful.  It  hurt  very  much,  and  took  away 
his  consciousness. 

Gerald,  however,  was  still  less  conscious  than  Birkin. 
They  waited  dimly,  in  a  sort  of  not-being,  for  many  uncounted, 
unknown  minutes. 

"Of  course,"  panted  Gerald,  "I  didn't  have  to  be  rough — 
with  you — I  had  to  keep  back — my  force — " 

Birkin  heard  the  sound  as  if  his  own  spirit  stood  behind 
him,  outside  him,  and  listened  to  it.  His  body  was  in  a 
trance  of  exhaustion,  his  spirit  heard  thinly.  His  body  could 
not  answer.  Only  he  knew  his  heart  was  getting  quieter. 
He  was  divided  entirely  between  his  spirit,  which  stood  out- 
side, and  knew,  and  his  body,  that  was  a  plunging,  uncon- 
scious stroke  of  blood. 

"I  could  have  thrown  you — using  violence,"  panted 
Gerald.     "But  you  beat  me  right  enough." 

"Yes,"  said  Birkin,  hardening  his  throat  and  producing 
the  words  in  the  tension  there,  "you're  much  stronger  than  I 
— you  could  beat  me — easily." 

Then  he  relaxed  again  to  the  terrible  plunging  of  his  heart 
and  his  blood. 

"It  surprised  me,"  panted  Gerald,  "what  strength  you've 
got.     Almost  supernatural." 

"For  a  moment,"  said  Birkin. 

He  still  heard  as  if  it  were  his  own  disembodied  spirit 
hearing,  standing  at  some  distance  behind  him.  It  drew 
nearer  however,  his  spirit.  And  the  violent  striking  of  blood 
in  his  chest  was  sinking  quieter,  allowing  his  mind  to  come 
back.  He  realised  that  he  was  leaning  with  all  his  weight  on 
the  soft  body  of  the  other  man.  It  startled  him,  because  he 
thought  he  had  withdrawn.  He  recovered  himself,  and  sat 
up.  But  he  was  still  vague  and  unestablished.  He  put  out 
his  hand  to  steady  himself.     It  touched  the  hand  of  Gerald, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  303 

that  was  lying  out  on  the  floor.  And  Gerald's  hand  closed 
warm  and  sudden  over  Birkin's,  they  remained  exhausted  and 
breathless,  the  one  hand  clasped  closely  over  the  other.  It 
was  Birkin  whose  hand,  in  swift  response,  had  closed  in  a 
strong,  warm  clasp  over  the  hand  of  the  other.  Gerald's  clasp 
had  been  sudden  and  momentaneous. 

The  normal  consciousness  however  was  returning,  ebbing 
back.  Birkin  could  breathe  almost  naturally  again.  Ger- 
ald's hand  slowly  withdrew,  Birkin  slowly,  dazedly  rose  to  his 
feet  and  went  towards  the  table.  He  poured  out  a  whiskey 
and  soda.     Gerald  also  came  for  a  drink. 

"It  was  a  real  set-to,  wasn't  it?"  said  Birkin,  looking  at 
Gerald  with  darkened  eyes. 

"God,  yes,"  said  Gerald.  He  looked  at  the  fine  body  of 
the  other  man,  and  added:  "It  wasn't  too  much  for  you,  was 
it?" 

"No.  One  ought  to  wrestle  and  strive  and  be  physically 
close.     It  makes  one  sane." 

"You  do  think  so?" 

"I  do.     Don't  you?" 

"Yes,"  said  Gerald. 

There  were  long  spaces  of  silence  between  their  words. 
The  wrestling  had  some  deep  meaning  to  them — an  unfinished 
meaning. 

"We  arc  mentally,  spiritually  intimate,  therefore  we  should 
be  more  or  less  physically  intimate  too — it  is  more  whole." 

"Certainly  it  is,"  said  Gerald.  Then  he  laughed  pleas- 
antly, adding:  "It's  rather  wonderful  to  me."  He  stretched 
out  his  arms  handsomely. 

"Yes,"  said  Birkin.  "I  don't  know  why  one  should  have 
to  justify  oneself." 

"No." 

The  two  men  began  to  dress. 

"I  think  also  that  you  are  beautiful,"  said  Birkin  to  Ger- 
ald, "and  that  is  enjoyable,  too.  One  should  enjoy  what  is 
given." 

"You  think  I  am  beautiful— how  do  you  mean,  physi- 
rally?"  asked  Gerald,  his  eyes  glistening. 

"Yea.      You  have  a  northern  kind  of  beauty,  like  light 


304  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

refracted  from  snow — and  a  beautiful,  plastic  form.  Yes,  that 
is  there  to  enjoy  as  well.     We  should  enjoy  everything." 

Gerald  laughed  in  his  throat,  and  said: 

"That's  certainly  one  way  of  looking  at  it.  I  can  say 
this  much,  I  feel  better.  It  has  certainly  helped  me.  Is  this 
the  Briiderschaft  you  wanted?" 

"Perhaps.     Do  you  think  this  pledges  anything?" 

"I  don't  know,"  laughed  Gerald. 

"At  any  rate,  one  feels  freer  and  more  open  now — and 
that  is  what  we  want." 

"Certainly,"  said  Gerald. 

They  drew  to  the  fire,  with  the  decanters  and  the  glasses 
and  the  food. 

"I  always  eat  a  little  before  I  go  to  bed,"  said  Gerald. 
"I  sleep  better." 

"I  should  not  sleep  so  well,"  said  Birkin. 

"No?  There  you  are,  we  are  not  alike.  I'll  put  a  dressing 
gown  on."  Birkin  remained  alone,  looking  at  the  fire.  His 
mind  had  reverted  to  Ursula.  She  seemed  to  return  again 
into  his  consciousness.  Gerald  came  down  wearing  a  gown  of 
broad-barred,  thick,  black-ahd-green  silk,  brilliant  and  striking. 

"You  are  very  fine,,"  said  Birkin,  looking  at  the  full  robe. 

"It  was  a  caftan  in  Bokhara,"  said  Gerald.     "I  like  it." 

"I  like  it,  too." 

Birkin  was  silent,  thinking  how  scrupulous  Gerald  was  in 
his  attire,  how  expensive,  too.  He  wore  silk  socks,  and  studs 
of  fine  workmanship,  and  silk  underclothing,  and  silk  braces. 
Curious.  This  was  another  of  the  differences  between  them. 
Birkin  was  careless  and  unimaginative  about  his  own  appear- 
ance. 

"Of  course  you,"  said  Gerald,  as  if  he  had  been  thinking; 
"there's  something  curious  about  you.  You're  curiously  strong. 
One  doesn't  expect  it,  it  is  rather  surprising." 

Birkin  laughed.  He  was  looking  at  the  handsome  figure 
of  the  other  man,  blond  and  comely  in  the  rich  robe,  and  he 
was  half  thinking  of  the  difference  between  it  and  himself — 
so  different;  as  far,  perhaps,  apart  as  man  from  woman,  yet 
in  another  directiom.  But  really  it  was  Ursula,  it  was  the 
woman  who  was  gaining  ascendance  over  Birkin's  being,  at 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  S05 

this  moment.  Gerald  was  becoming  dim  again,  lapsing  out 
of  him. 

"Do  you  know,"  he  said  suddenly,  "I  went  and  proposed 
to  Ursula  Brangwen  to-night,  that  she  should  marry  me?" 

He  saw  the  blank  shining  wonder  come  over  Gerald's  face. 

"You  did?" 

"Yes.  Almost  formally — speaking  first  to  her  father,  as 
it  should  be,  in  the  world — though  that  was  accident — or 
mischief." 

Gerald  only  stared  in  wonder,  as  if  he  did  not  grasp. 

"You  don't  mean  to  say  that  you  seriously  went  and  asked 
her  father  to  let  you  marry  her?" 

"Yes,"  said  Birkin,  "I  did." 

"What,  had  you  spoken  to  her  about  it  before,  then?" 

"No,  not  a  word.  I  suddenly  thought  I  would  go  there 
and  ask  her — and  her  father  happened  to  come  instead  of 
her — so  I  asked  him  first." 

"If  you  could  have  her?"  concluded  Gerald. 

"Ye-es,  that." 

"And  you  didn't  speak  to  her?" 

"Yes.  She  came  in  afterwards.  So  it  was  put  to  her  as 
well." 

"It  was!  And  what  did  she  say  then?  You're  an  engaged 
man?" 

"No, — she  only  said  she  didn't  want  to  be  bullied  into 
answering." 

"She  what?" 

"Said  she  didn't  want  to  be  bullied  into  answering." 

"  'Said  she  didn't  want  to  be  bullied  into  answering !'  Why, 
what  did  she  mean  by  that?" 

Birkin  raised  his  shoulders.  "Can't  say,"  he  answered. 
"Didn't  want  to  be  bothered  just  then,  I  suppose." 

"But  is  this  really  so?     And  what  did  you  do  then?" 

"I  walked  out  of  the  house  and  came  here." 

"You  came  straight  here?" 

"Yes." 

Gerald  stared  in  amazement  and  amusement.  He  could 
not  take  it  in. 

"But  is  this  really  true,  as  you  say  it  now?" 


306  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

"Word  for  word." 

"It  is?" 

He  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  filled  with  delight  and  amuse- 
ment. 

"Well,  that's  good,"  he  said.  "And  so  you  came  here  to 
wrestle  with  your  good  angel,  did  you?" 

"Did  I?"  said  Birkin. 

"Well,  it  looks  like  it.      Isn't  that  what  you  did?" 

Now  Birkin  could  not  follow  Gerald's  meaning. 

"And  what's  going  to  happen?"  said  Gerald.  "You're 
going  to  keep  open  the  proposition,  so  to  speak?" 

"I  suppose  so.  I  vowed  to  myself  I  would  see  them  all 
to  the  devil.  But  I  suppose  I  shall  ask  her  again,  in  a  little 
while." 

Gerald  watched  him  steadily. 

"So  you're  fond  of  her  then?"  he  asked. 

"I  think — I  love  her,"  said  Birkin,  his  face  going  very  still 
and  fixed. 

Gerald  glistened  for  a  moment  with  pleasure,  as  if  it  were 
something  done  specially  to  please  him.  Then  his  face  as- 
sumed a  fitting  gravity,  and  he  nodded  his  head  slowly. 

"You  know,"  he  said,  "I  always  believed  in  love — true 
love.      But  where  does  one  find  it  nowadays?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Birkin. 

"Very  rarely,"  said  Gerald.  Then,  after  a  pause,  "I've 
never  felt  it  myself — not  what  I  should  call  love.  I've  gone 
after  women — and  been  keen  enough  over  some  of  them.  But 
I've  never  felt  love.  I  don't  believe  I've  ever  felt  as  much 
love  for  a  woman,  as  I  have  for  you — not  love.  You  under- 
stand what  I  mean?" 

"Yes.     I'm  sure  you've  never  loved  a  woman." 

"You  feel  that,  do  you?  And  do  you  think  I  ever  shall? 
You  understand  what  I  mean?"  He  put  his  hand  to  his 
breast,  closing  his  fist  there,  as  if  he  would  draw  something 
out.  "I  mean  that — that — I  can't  express  what  it  is,  but  I 
know  it." 

"What  is  it,  then?"  asked  Birkin. 

"You  see,  I  can't  put  it  into  words.  I  mean,  at  any  rate, 
something  abiding,  something  that  can't  change — " 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  307 

His  eyes  were  bright  and  puzzled. 

"Now  do  you  think  I  shall  ever  feel  that  for  a  woman?" 
he  said,  anxiously. 

Birkin  looked  at  him,  and  shook  his  head. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said.     "I  could  not  say." 

Gerald  had  been  on  the  qui  vive,  as  awaiting  his  fate.  Now 
he  drew  back  in  his  chair. 

"No,"  he  said,  "and  neither  do  I,  and  neither  do  I." 

"We  are  different,  you  and  I,"  said  Birkin.  "I  can't  tell 
your  life." 

"No,"  said  Gerald,  "no  more  can  I.  But  I  tell  you — I 
begin  to  doubt  it!" 

"That  you  will  ever  love  a  woman?" 

"Well — yes — what  you  would  truly  call  love." 

"You  doubt  it?" 

"Well— I  begin  to." 

There  was  a  long  pause. 

"Life  has  all  kinds  of  things,"  said  Birkin.  "There  isn't 
only  one  road." 

"Yes,  I  believe  that,  too.  I  believe  it.  And  mind  you, 
I  don't  care  how  it  is  with  me — I  don't  care  how  it  is — so 
long  as  I  don't  feel — "  He  paused,  and  a  blank,  barren  look 
passed  over  his  face,  to  express  his  feeling — "so  long  as  I  feel 
I've  lived,  somehow — and  I  don't  care  how  it  is — but  I  want 
to  feel  that—" 

"Fulfilled,"  said  Birkin. 

"We-ell,  perhaps  it  is,  fulfilled;  I  don't  use  the  same  words 
as  you." 

"It  is  the  same." 


CHAPTER  XXI 

GUDRUN  was  away  in  London,  having  a  little  show  of 
her  work,  with  a  friend,  and  looking  round,  preparing 
for  flight  from  Beldover.  Come  what  might  she 
would  be  on  the  wing  in  a  very  short  time.  She  received  a 
letter  from  Winifred  Crich,  ornamented  with  drawings. 

"Father  also  has  been  to  London,  to  be  examined  by  the  doctors.  It 
made  him  very  tired.  They  say  he  must  rest  a  very  great  deal,  so  he  is 
mostly  in  bed.  He  brought  me  a  lovely  tropical  parrot  in  faience,  of 
Dresden  ware,  also  a  man  ploughing,  and  two  mice  climbing  up  a  stalk, 
also  in  faience.  The  mice  were  Copenhagen  ware.  They  are  the  best, 
but  mice  don't  shine  so  much,  otherwise  they  are  very  good,  their  tails 
are  slim  and  long.  They  all  shine  nearly  like  glass.  Of  course  it  is  the 
glaze,  but  I  don't  like  it.  Gerald  likes  the  man  ploughing  the  best,  his 
trousers  are  torn,  he  is  ploughing  with  an  ox,  being,  I  suppose  a  German 
peasant.  It  is  all  grey  and  white,  white  shirt  and  grey  trousers,  but  very 
shiny  and  clean.  Mr.  Birkin  likes  the  girl  best,  under  the  hawthorn  blos- 
som, with  a  lamb,  and  with  daffodils  painted  on  her  skirts,  in  the  drawing 
room.  But  that  is  silly,  because  the  lamb  is  not  a  real  lamb,  and  she  is 
silly,  too. 

Dear  Miss  Brangwen,  are  you  coming  back  soon,  you  are  very  much 
missed  here.  I  enclose  a  drawing  of  father  sitting  up  in  bed.  He  says 
he  hopes  you  are  not  going  to  forsake  us.  Oh  dear  Miss  Brangwen,  I 
am  sure  you  won't.  Do  come  back  and  draw  the  ferrets,  they  are  the 
most  lovely  noble  darlings  in  the  world.  We  might  carve  them  in  holly- 
wood,  playing  against  a  background  of  green  leaves.  Oh  do  let  us,  for 
they  are  most  beautiful. 

Father  says  we  might  have  a  studio.  Gerald  says  we  could  easily 
have  a  beautiful  one  over  the  stables,  it  would  only  need  windows  to  be 
put  in  the  slant  of  the  roof,  which  is  a  simple  matter.  Then  you  could 
stay  here  all  day  and  work,  and  we  could  live  in  the  studio,  like  two  real 
artists,  like  the  man  in  the  picture  in  the  hall,  with  the  frying-pan  and 
the  walls  all  covered  with  drawings.  I  long  to  be  free,  to  live  the  free 
life  of  an  artist.  Even  Gerald  told  father  that  only  an  artist  is  free,  be- 
cause he  lives  in  a  creative  world  of  his  own,  .  .  ." 

Gudrun  caught  the  drift  of  the  family  intentions,  in  this 
letter.  Gerald  wanted  her  to  be  attached  to  the  household 
at  Shortlands,  he  was  using  Winifred  as  his  stalking-horse. 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  309 

The  father  thought  only  of  his  child,  he  saw  a  rock  of  salvation 
in  Gudrun.  And  Gudrun  admired  him  for  his  perspicacity. 
The  child,  moreover,  was  really  exceptional.  Gudrun  was 
quite  content.  She  was  quite  willing,  given  a  studio,  to  spend 
her  days  at  Shortlands.  She  disliked  the  Grammar  School 
already  thoroughly,  she  wanted  to  be  free.  If  a  studio  were 
provided,  she  would  be  free  to  go  on  with  her  work,  she  would 
await  the  turn  of  events  with  complete  serenity.  And  she 
was  really  interested  in  Winifred,  she  would  be  quite  glad  to 
understand  the  girl. 

So  there  was  quite  a  little  festivity  on  Winifred's  account, 
the  day  Gudrun  returned  to  Shortlands. 

"You  should  make  a  bunch  of  flowers  to  give  to  Miss 
Brangwen  when  she  arrives,"  Gerald  said  smiling,  to  his  sister. 

"Oh  no,"  cried  Winifred,  "it's  silly." 

"Not  at  all.  It  is  a  very  charming  and  ordinary  atten- 
tion." 

"Oh  it  is  silly,"  protested  Winifred,  with  all  the  extreme 
mauvaise  horde  of  her  years.  Nevertheless,  the  idea  ap- 
pealed to  her.  She  wanted  very  much  to  carry  it  out.  She 
flitted  round  the  green-houses  and  the  conservatory  looking 
wistfully  at  the  flowers  on  their  stems.  And  the  more  she 
looked,  the  more  she  longed  to  have  a  bunch  of  the  blossoms 
she  saw,  the  more  fascinated  she  became  with  her  little  vision 
of  ceremony,  and  the  more  consumedly  shy  and  self-conscious 
she  grew,  till  she  was  almost  beside  herself.  She  could  not 
get  the  idea  out  of  her  mind.  It  was  as  if  some  haunting  chal- 
lenge prompted  her,  and  she  had  not  enough  courage  to  take 
it  up.  So  again  she  drifted  into  the  green-houses,  looking  at 
the  lovely  roses  in  their  pots,  and  at  the  virginal  cyclamens, 
and  at  the  mystic  white  clusters  of  a  creeper.  The  beauty, 
oh  the  beauty  of  them,  and  oh  the  paradisal  bliss,  if  she  should 
have  a  perfect  bouquet  and  could  give  it  to  Gudrun  the  next 
day.  Her  passion  and  her  complete  indecision  almost  made 
her  ill. 

At  last  she  slid  to  her  father's  side. 

"Daddie,"  she  said. 

"What,  my  precious?" 

But  she  hung  back,  the  tears  almost  coming  to  her  eyes, 


310  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

in  her  sensitive  confusion.  Her  father  looked  at  her,  and  his 
heart  ran  hot  with  tenderness,  an  anguish  of  poignant  love. 

"What  do  you  want  to  say  to  me,  my  love?" 

"Daddie!"  her  eyes  smiled  laconically,  "isn't  it  silly  if  I 
give  Miss  Brangwen  some  flowers  when  she  comes?" 

The  sick  man  looked  at  the  bright,  knowing  eyes  of  his 
child,  and  his  heart  burned  with  love. 

"No,  darling,  that's  not  silly.  It's  what  they  do  to 
queens." 

This  was  not  very  reassuring  to  Winifred.  She  half  ex- 
pected that  queens  in  themselves  were  a  silliness.  Yet  she 
so  wanted  her  little  romantic  occasion. 

"Shall  I  then?"  she  asked. 

"Give  Miss  Brangwen  some  flowers?  Do,  Birdie.  Tell 
Wilson  I  say  you  are  to  have  what  you  want." 

The  child  smiled  a  small,  subtle,  unconscious  smile  to  her- 
self, in  anticipation  of  her  way. 

"But  I  won't  get  them  till  to-morrow,"  she  said. 

"Not  till  to-morrow,  Birdie.      Give  me  a  kiss  then — " 

Winifred  silently  kissed  the  sick  man,  and  drifted  out  of 
the  room.  She  again  went  the  round  of  the  green-houses  and 
the  conservatory,  informing  the  gardener,  in  her  high,  per- 
emptory, simple  fashion,  of  what  she  wanted,  telling  him  all 
the  blooms  she  had  selected. 

"What  do  you  want  these  for?"  Wilson  asked. 

"I  want  them,"  she  said.  She  wished  servants  did  not  ask 
questions. 

"Ay,  you've  said  as  much.  But  what  do  you  want  them 
for,  for  decoration,  or  to  send  away,  or  what?" 

"I  want  them  for  a  presentation  bouquet." 

"A  presentation  bouquet?  Who's  coming,  then? — The 
Duchess  of  Portland?" 

"No." 

"Oh,  not  her? — Well,  you'll  have  a  rare  poppy-show  if  you 
put  all  the  things  you've  mentioned  into  your  bouquet." 

"Yes,  I  want  a  rare  poppy-show." 

"You  do?     Then  there's  no  more  to  be  said." 

The  next  day  Winifred,  in  a  dress  of  silvery  velvet,  and 
holding  a  gaudy  bunch  of  flowers  in  her  hand,  waited  with 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  311 

keen  impatience  in  the  schoolroom,  looking  down  the  drive  for 
Gudrun's  arrival.  It  was  a  wet  morning.  Under  her  nose 
was  the  strange  fragrance  of  hot-house  flowers,  the  bunch  was 
like  a  little  fire  to  her,  she  seemed  to  have  a  strange  new  fire 
in  her  heart.  This  slight  sense  of  romance  stirred  her  like  an 
intoxicant. 

At  last  she  saw  Gudrun  coming,  and  she  ran  downstairs  to 
warn  her  father  and  Gerald.  They,  laughing  at  her  anxiety 
and  gravity,  came  with  her  into  the  hall.  The  man-servant 
came  hastening  to  the  door,  and  there  he  was,  relieving  Gud- 
run of  her  umbrella,  and  then  of  her  raincoat.  The  welcom- 
ing party  hung  back  till  their  visitor  entered  the  hall. 

Gudrun  was  flushed  with  the  rain,  her  hair  was  blown  in 
loose  little  curls,  she  was  like  a  flower  just  opened  in  the  rain, 
the  heart  of  the  blossom  just  newly  visible,  seeming  to  emit 
a  warmth  of  retained  sunshine.  Gerald  winced  in  spirit,  see- 
ing her  so  beautiful  and  unknown.  She  was  wearing  a  soft 
blue  dress,  and  her  stockings  were  of  dark  red. 

Winifred  advanced  with  odd,  stately  formality. 

"We  are  so  glad  you've  come  back,"  she  said.  "These  are 
your  flowers."     She  presented  the  bouquet. 

"Mine?"  cried  Gudrun.  She  was  suspended  for  a  mo- 
ment, then  a  vivid  flush  went  over  her,  she  was  as  if  blinded  for 
a  moment  with  a  flame  of  pleasure.  Then  her  eyes,  strange 
and  flaming,  lifted  and  looked  at  the  father,  and  at  Gerald. 
And  again  Gerald  shrank  in  spirit,  as  if  it  would  be  more  than 
he  could  bear,  as  her  hot,  exposed  eyes  rested  on  him.  There 
was  something  so  revealed,  she  was  revealed  beyond  bearing,  to 
his  eyes.  He  turned  his  face  aside.  And  he  felt  he  would  not 
be  able  to  avert  her.    And  he  writhed  under  the  imprisonment. 

Gudrun  put  her  face  into  the  flowers. 

"But  how  beautiful  they  are!"  she  said,  in  a  muffled  voice. 
Then,  with  a  strange,  suddenly  revealed  passion,  she  stooped 
and  kissed  Winifred. 

Mr.  Crich  went  forward  with  his  hand  held  out  to  her. 

"I  was  afraid  you  were  going  to  run  away  from  us,"  he 
said,  playfully. 

Gudrun  looked  up  at  him  with  a  luminous,  roguish,  un- 
known face. 


312  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Really?"  she  replied.  "No,  I  didn't  want  to  stay  in 
London." 

Her  voice  seemed  to  imply  that  she  was  glad  to  get  back 
to  Shortlands,  her  tone  was  warm  and  subtly  caressing. 

"That  is  a  good  thing,"  smiled  the  father.  "You  see  you 
are  very  welcome  here  among  us." 

Gudrun  only  looked  into  his  face  with  dark-blue,  warm, 
shy  eyes.  She  was  unconsciously  carried  away  by  her  own 
power. 

"And  you  look  as  if  you  came  home  in  every  possible 
triumph,"  Mr.  Crich  continued,  holding  her  hand. 

"No,"  she  said,  glowing  strangely.  "I  haven't  had  any 
triumph  till  I  came  here." 

"Ah,  come,  come!  We're  not  going  to  hear  any  of  those 
tales.     Haven't  we  read  notices  in  the  newspaper,  Gerald?" 

"You  came  off  pretty  well,"  said  Gerald  to  her,  shaking 
hands.      "Did  you  sell  anything?" 

"No,"  she  said,  "not  much." 

"Just  as  well,"  he  said. 

She  wondered  what  he  meant.  But  she  was  all  aglow 
with  her  reception,  carried  away  by  this  little  flattering  cere- 
monial on  her  behalf. 

"Winifred,"  said  the  father,  "have  you  a  pair  of  shoes  for 
Miss  Brangwen?     You  had  better  change  at  once." 

Gudrun  went  out  with  her  bouquet  in  her  hand. 

"Quite  a  remarkable  young  woman,"  said  the  father  to 
Gerald,  when  she  had  gone. 

"Yes,"  replied  Gerald  briefly,  as  if  he  did  not  like  the 
observation. 

Mr.  Crich  liked  Gudrun  to  sit  with  him  for  half  an  hour. 
Usually  he  was  ashy  and  wretched,  with  all  the  life  gnawed 
out  of  him.  But  as  soon  as  he  rallied,  he  liked  to  make  be- 
lieve that  he  was  just  as  before,  quite  well  and  in  the  midst 
of  life — not  of  the  outer  world,  but  in  the  midst  of  a  strong 
essential  life.  And  to  this  belief,  Gudrun  contributed  per- 
fectly. With  her,  he  could  get  by  stimulation  those  precious 
half-hours  of  strength  and  exaltation  and  pure  freedom,  when 
he  seemed  to  live  more  than  he  had  ever  lived. 

She  came  to  him  as  he  lay  propped  up  in  the  library.     His 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  313 

face  was  like  yellow  wax,  his  eyes  darkened,  as  it  were  sight- 
less. His  black  beard,  now  streaked  with  grey,  seemed  to 
spring  out  of  the  waxy  flesh  of  a  corpse.  Yet  the  atmosphere 
about  him  was  energetic  and  playful.  Gudrun  subscribed  to 
this,  perfectly.  To  her  fancy,  he  was  just  an  ordianry  man. 
Only  his  rather  terrible  appearance  was  photographed  upon 
her  soul,  away  beneath  her  consciousness.  She  knew  that,  in 
spite  of  his  playfulness,  his  eyes  could  not  change  from  their 
darkened  vacancy,  they  were  the  eyes  of  a  man  who  is  dead. 

"Ah,  this  is  Miss  Brangwen,"  he  said,  suddenly  rousing  as 
she  entered,  announced  by  the  man-servant.  "Thomas,  put 
Miss  Brangwen  a  chair  here — that's  right."  He  looked  at  her 
soft,  fresh  face  with  pleasure.  It  gave  him  the  illusion  of 
life.  "Now,  you  will  have  a  glass  of  sherry  and  a  little  piece 
of  cake.     Thomas — " 

"No,  thank  you,"  said  Gudrun.  And  as  soon  as  she  had 
said  it,  her  heart  sank  horribly.  The  sick  man  seemed  to  fall 
into  a  gap  of  death,  at  her  contradiction.  She  ought  to  play 
up  to  him,  not  to  contravene  him.  In  an  instant 
she  was  smiling  her  rather  roguish  smile. 

"I  don't  like  sherry  very  much,"  she  said.  "But  I  like 
almost  anything  else." 

The  sick  man  caught  at  this  straw  instantly. 

"Not  sherry!  No!  Something  else!  What  then? 
What  is  there,  Thomas?" 

"Port  wine — curacao — " 

"I  would  love  some  curacao,"  said  Gudrun,  looking  at  the 
sick  man  confidingly. 

"You  would?  Well,  then,  Thomas,  curacoa — and  a  little 
cake,  or  a  biscuit?" 

"A  biscuit,"  said  Gudrun.  She  did  not  want  anything, 
but  she  was  wise. 

"Yes." 

He  waited  till  she  was  settled  with  her  little  glass  and  her 
biscuit.     Then  he  was  satisfied. 

"You  have  heard  the  plan,"  he  said,  with  some  excite- 
ment, "for  a  studio  for  Winifred,  over  the  stables?" 

"No!"  exclaimed  Gudrun,  in  mock  wonder. 

"Oh! — I  thought  Winnie  wrote  it  to  you,  in  her  letter!" 


314  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Oh — yes — of  course.  But  I  thought  perhaps  it  was  only 
her  own  little  idea."  Gudrun  smiled  subtly,  indulgently.  The 
sick  man  smiled  also,  elated. 

"Oh  no.  It  is  a  real  project.  There  is  a  good  room  under 
the  roof  of  the  stables — with  sloping  rafters.  We  had  thought 
of  converting  it  into  a  studio." 

"How  very  nice  that  would  be!"  cried  Gudrun,  with  excited 
warmth.      The  thought  of  the  rafters  stirred  her. 

"You  think  it  would?     Well,  it  can  be  done." 

"But  how  perfectly  splendid  for  Winifred!  Of  course,  it 
is  just  what  is  needed,  if  she  is  to  work  at  all  seriously.  One 
must  have  one's  workshop,  otherwise  one  never  ceases  to  be 
an  amateur." 

"Is  that  so?  Yes. — Of  course,  I  should  like  you  to  share 
it  with  Winifred." 

"Thank  you  so  much." 

Gudrun  knew  all  these  things  already,  but  she  must  look 
shy  and  very  grateful,  as  if  overcome. 

"Of  course,  what  I  should  like  best,  would  be  if  you  could 
give  up  your  work  at  the  Grammar  School,  and  just  avail 
yourself  of  the  studio,  and  work  there — well,  as  much  or  as 
little  as  you  liked." 

He  looked  at  Gudrun  with  dark,  vacant  eyes.  She  looked 
back  at  him  as  if  full  of  gratitude.  These  phrases  of  a  dying 
man  were  so  complete  and  natural,  coming  like  echoes  through 
his  dead  mouth. 

"And  as  to  your  earnings — you  don't  mind  taking  from 
me  what  you  have  taken  from  the  Education  Committee,  do 
you?     I  don't  want  you  to  be  a  loser." 

"Oh,"  said  Gudrun,  "if  I  can  have  the  studio  and  work 
there,  I  can  earn  money  enough,  really  I  can." 

"Well,"  he  said,  pleased  to  be  the  benefactor,  "we  can  see 
about  all  that.  You  wouldn't  mind  spending  your  days 
here?" 

"If  there  were  a  studio  to  work  in,"  said  Gudrun,  "I  could 
ask  for  nothing  better." 

"Is  that  so?" 

He  was  really  very  pleased.  But  already  he  was  getting 
tired.      She  could  see  the  grey,  awful  semi-consciousness  of 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  815 

mere  pain  and  dissolution  coming  over  him  again,  the  torture 
coming  into  the  vacancy  of  his  darkened  eyes.  It  was  not 
over  yet,  this  process  of  death.     She  rose  softly  saying: 

"Perhaps  you  will  sleep.     I  must  look  for  Winifred." 

She  went  out,  telling  the  nurse  that  she  had  left  him. 
Day  by  day  the  tissue  of  the  sick  man  was  further  and  further 
reduced,  nearer  and  nearer  the  process  came,  towards  the  last 
knot  which  held  the  human  being  in  its  unity.  But  this  knot 
was  hard  and  unrelaxed,  the  will  of  the  dying  man  never  gave 
way.  He  might  be  dead  in  nine-tenths,  yet  the  remaining  tenth 
remained  unchanged,  till  it  too,  was  torn  apart.  With  his 
will  he  held  the  unit  of  himself  firm,  but  the  circle  of  his 
power  was  ever  and  ever  reduced,  it  would  be  reduced  to  a 
point  at  last,  then  swept  away. 

To  adhere  to  life,  he  must  adhere  to  human  relationships, 
and  he  caught  at  every  straw.  Winifred,  the  butler,  the  nurse, 
Gudrun,  these  were  the  people  who  meant  all  to  him,  in  these 
last  resources.  Gerald,  in  his  father's  presence,  stiffened  with 
repulsion.  It  was  so,  to  a  less  degree,  with  all  the  other  child- 
ren, except  Winifred.  They  could  not  see  anything  but  the 
death,  when  they  looked  at  their  father.  It  was  as  if  some 
subterranean  dislike  overcame  them.  They  could  not  see  the 
familiar  face,  hear  the  familiar  voice.  They  were  over- 
whelmed by  the  antipathy  of  visible  and  audible  death. 
Gerald  could  not  breathe  in  his  father's  presence.  He  must 
get  out  at  once.  And  so,  in  the  same  way,  the  father  could 
not  bear  the  presence  of  his  son.  It  sent  a  final  irritation 
through  the  soul  of  the  dying  man. 

The  studio  was  made  ready,  Gudrun  and  Winifred  moved 
in.  They  enjoyed  so  much  the  ordering  and  the  appointing 
of  it.  And  now  they  need  hardly  be  in  the  house  at  all.  They 
had  their  meals  in  the  studio,  they  lived  there  safely.  For 
the  house  was  becoming  dreadful.  There  were  two  nurses  in 
white,  flitting  silently  about,  like  heralds  of  death.  The 
father  was  confined  to  his  bed,  there  was  a  come  and  go  of 
sotto-toce  sisters  and  brothers  and  children. 

Winifred  was  her  father's  constant  visitor.  Every  morning, 
after  breakfast,  she  went  into  his  room  when  he  was  washed 
and  propped  up  in  bed,  to  spend  half  an  hour  with  him. 


S16  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Are  you  better,  Daddie?"  she  asked  him  invariably. 

And  invariably  he  answered: 

"Yes,  I  think  I'm  a  little  better,  pet." 

She  held  his  hand  in  both  her  own,  lovingly  and  protect- 
ively.    And  this  was  very  dear  to  him. 

She  ran  in  again,  as  a  rule,  at  lunch  time,  to  tell  him  the 
course  of  events,  and  every  evening,  when  the  curtains  were 
drawn,  and  his  room  was  cosy,  she  spent  a  long  time  with  him. 
Gudrun  was  gone  home,  Winifred  was  alone  in  the  house,  she 
liked  best  to  be  with  her  father.  They  talked  and  prattled  at 
random,  he  always  as  if  he  were  well,  just  the  same  as  when 
he  was  going  about.  So  that  Winifred,  with  a  child's  subtle 
instinct  for  avoiding  the  painful  things,  behaved  as  if  nothing 
serious  was  the  matter.  Instinctively,  she  withheld  her  atten- 
tion, and  was  happy.  Yet  in  her  remoter  soul,  she  knew  as 
well  as  the  adults  knew:   perhaps  better. 

Her  father  was  quite  well  in  his  make-belief  with  her. 
But  when  she  went  away,  he  relapsed  under  the  misery  of  his 
dissolution.  But  still  there  were  these  bright  moments, 
though  as  his  strength  waned,  his  faculty  for  attention  grew 
weaker,  and  the  nurse  had  to  send  Winifred  away,  to  save  him 
from  exhaustion. 

He  never  admitted  that  he  was  going  to  die.  He  knew  it 
was  so,  he  knew  it  was  the  end.  Yet  even  to  himself  he  did 
not  admit  it.  He  hated  the  fact,  mortally.  His  will  was 
rigid.  He  could  not  bear  being  overcome  by  death.  For 
him,  there  was  no  death.  And  yet,  at  times,  he  felt  a  great 
need  to  cry  out  and  to  wail  and  complain.  He  would  have 
like  to  cry  aloud  to  Gerald,  so  that  his  son  should  be  horrified 
out  of  his  composure.  Gerald  was  instinctively  aware  of  this, 
and  he  recoiled,  to  avoid  any  such  thing.  This  uncleanness  of 
death  repelled  him  too  much.  One  should  die  quickly,  like 
the  Romans,  one  should  be  master  of  one's  fate  in  dying  as 
in  living.  He  was  convulsed  in  the  clasp  of  this  death  of  his 
father's,  as  in  the  coils  of  the  great  serpent  of  Laocoon.  The 
great  serpent  had  got  the  father,  and  the  son  was  dragged  into 
the  embrace  of  horrifying  death  along  with  him.  He  resisted 
always.  And  in  some  strange  way,  he  was  a  tower  of  strength 
to  his  father. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  317 

The  last  time  the  dying  man  asked  to  see  Gudrun  he  was 
grey  with  near  death.  Yet  he  must  see  someone,  he  must,  in 
the  intervals  of  consciousness,  catch  into  connection  with  the 
living  world,  lest  he  should  have  to  accept  his  own  situation. 
Fortunately  he  was  most  of  his  time  dazed  and  half  gone. 
And  he  spent  many  hours  dimly  thinking  of  the  past,  as  it 
were,  dimly  re-living  his  old  experiences.  But  there  were 
times  even  to  the  end  when  he  was  capable  of  realising  what 
was  happening  to  him  in  the  present,  the  death  that  was  on 
him.  And  these  were  the  times  when  he  called  in  outside 
help,  no  matter  whose.  For  to  realise  this  death  that  he  was 
dying  was  a  death  beyond  death,  never  to  be  borne.  It  was 
an  admission  never  to  be  made. 

Gudrun  was  shocked  by  his  appearance,  and  by  the  dark- 
ened, almost  disintegrated  eyes,  that  still  were  unconquered 
and  firm. 

"Well,"  he  said  in  his  weakened  voice,  "and  how  are  you 
and  Winifred  getting  on?" 

"Oh,  very  well  indeed,"  replied  Gudrun. 

There  were  light  dead  gaps  in  the  conversation,  as  if  the 
ideas  called  up  were  only  elusive  straws  floating  on  the  dark 
chaos  of  the  sick  man's  dying. 

"The  studio  answers  all  right?"  he  said. 

"Splendid.  It  couldn't  be  more  beautiful  and  perfect," 
said  Gudrun. 

She  waited  for  what  he  would  say  next. 

"And  you  think  Winifred  has  the  makings  of  a  sculptor?" 

It  was  strange  how  hollow  the  words  were,  meaningless. 

"I'm  sure  she  has.     She  will  do  good  things  one  day." 

"Ah!  Then  her  life  won't  be  altogether  wasted,  you 
think?" 

Gudrun  was  rather  surprised. 

"Sure  it  won't!"  she  exclaimed  softly. 

"That's  right." 

Again  Gudrun  waited  for  what  he  would  say. 

"You  find  life  pleasant,  it  is  good  to  live,  isn't  it?"  he  asked, 
with  a  pitiful  faint  smile  that  was  almost  too  much  for  Gudrun. 

"Yes,"  she  smiled — she  would  lie  at  random.  "I  get  a 
pretty  good  time,  I  believe." 


S18  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"That's  right.     A  happy  nature  is  a  great  asset." 

Again  Gudrun  smiled,  though  her  soul  was  dry  with  repul- 
sion. Did  one  have  to  die  like  this — having  the  life  extracted 
forcibly  from  one,  whilst  one  smiled  and  made  conversation 
to  the  end?  Was  there  no  other  way?  Must  one  go  through 
all  the  horror  of  this  victory  over  death,  the  triumph  of  the 
integral  will,  that  would  not  be  broken  till  it  disappeared 
utterly?  One  must,  it  was  the  only  way.  She  admired  the 
self-possession  and  the  control  of  the  dying  man  exceedingly. 
But  she  loathed  the  death  itself.  She  was  glad  the  every- 
day world  held  good,  and  she  need  not  recognise  anything 
beyond. 

"You  are  quite  all  right  here? — nothing  we  can  do  for  you? 
— nothing  you  find  wrong  in  your  position?" 

"Except  that  you  are  too  good  to  me,"  said  Gudrun. 

"Ah,  well,  the  fault  of  that  lies  with  yourself,"  he  said, 
and  he  felt  a  little  exultation,  that  he  had  made  this  speech. 
He  was  still  so  strong  and  living!  But  the  nausea  of  death 
began  to  creep  back  on  him,  in  reaction. 

Gudrun  went  away,  back  to  Winifred.  Mademoiselle  had 
left,  Gudrun  stayed  a  good  deal  at  Shortlands,  and  a  tutor 
came  in  to  carry  on  Winifred's  education.  But  he  did  not 
live  in  the  house,  he  was  connected  with  the  Grammar  School. 

One  day,  Gudrun  was  to  drive  with  Winifred  and  Gerald 
and  Birkin  to  town,  in  the  car.  It  was  a  dark,  showery  day. 
Winifred  and  Gudrun  were  ready  and  waiting  at  the  door. 
Winifred  was  very  quiet,  but  Gudrun  had  not  noticed.  Sud- 
denly the  child  asked,  in  a  voice  of  unconcern: 

"Do  you  think  my  father's  going  to  die,  Miss  Brangwen?" 

Gudrun  started. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  replied. 

"Don't  you  truly?" 

"Nobody  knows  for  certain.     He  may  die,  of  course." 

The  child  pondered  a  few  moments,  then  she  asked: 

"But  do  you  think  he  will  die?" 

It  was  put  almost  like  a  question  in  geography  or  science, 
insistent,  as  if  she  would  force  an  admission  from  the  adult. 
The  watchful,  slightly  triumphant  child  was  almost  diabol- 
ical. 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  319 

"Do  I  think  he  will  die?"  repeated  Gudrun.     "Yes,  I  do." 

But  Winifred's  large  eyes  were  fixed  on  her,  and  the  girl 
did  not  move. 

"He  is  very  ill,"  said  Gudrun. 

A  small  smile  came  over  Winifred's  face,  subtle  and  scep- 
tical. 

"/  don't  believe  he  will,"  the  child  asserted,  mockingly, 
and  she  moved  away  into  the  drive.  Gudrun  watched  the 
isolated  figure,  and  her  heart  stood  still.  Winifred  was  play- 
ing with  a  little  rivulet  of  water,  absorbedly  as  if  nothing  had 
been  said. 

"I've  made  a  proper  dam,"  she  said,  out  of  the  moist  dis- 
tance. 

Gerald  came  to  the  door  from  out  of  the  hall  behind. 

"It  is  just  as  well  she  doesn't  choose  to  believe  it,"  he 
said. 

Gudrun  looked  at  him.  Their  eyes  met:  and  they  ex- 
changed a  sardonic  understanding. 

"Just  as  well,"  said  Gudrun. 

He  looked  at  her  again,  and  a  fire  flickered  up  in  his  eyes. 

"But  to  dance  while  Rome  burns,  since  it  must  burn,  don't 
you  think?"  he  said. 

She  was  rather  taken  aback.  But,  gathering  herself  to- 
gether, she  replied: 

"Oh,  better  dance  than  wail,  certainly." 

"So  I  think." 

And  they  both  felt  the  subterranean  desire  to  let  go,  to 
fling  away  everything,  and  lapse  into  a  sheer  unrestraint, 
brutal  and  licentious.  A  strange  black  passion  surged  up 
pure  in  Gudrun.  She  felt  strong.  She  felt  her  hands  so 
strong,  as  if  she  could  tear  the  world  asunder  with  them. 
She  remembered  the  abandonments  of  Roman  licence,  and 
her  heart  grew  hot.  She  knew  she  wanted  this  herself  also — 
or  something,  something  equivalent.  Ah,  if  that  which  was 
unknown  and  suppressed  in  her  were  once  let  loose,  what  an 
orgiastic  and  satisfying  event  it  would  be.  And  she  wanted 
it,  she  trembled  slightly  from  the  proximity  of  the  man,  who 
stood  just  behind  her,  suggestive  of  the  same  black  licentious- 
ness that  rose  in  herself.     She  wanted  it  with  him,  this  un- 


320  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

acknowledged  frenzy.  For  a  moment  the  clear  perception  of 
this  preoccupied  her,  distinct  and  perfect  in  its  final  reality. 
Then  she  shut  it  off  completely,  saying: 

"We  might  as  well  go  down  to  the  lodge  after  Winifred — 
we  can  get  in  the  car  there." 

"So  we  can,"  he  answered,  going  to  her. 

They  found  Winifred  at  the  lodge  admiring  the  litter  of 
pure-bred  white  puppies.  The  girl  looked  up,  and  there  was 
a  rather  ugly,  unseeing  cast  in  her  eyes  as  she  turned  to  Gerald 
and  Gudrun.      She  did  not  want  to  see  them. 

"Look!"  she  cried.  "Three  new  puppies!  Marshall  says 
this  one  seems  perfect.  Isn't  it  a  sweetling?  But  it  isn't  so 
nice  as  its  mother."  She  turned  to  caress  the  fine  white  bull- 
terrier  bitch  that  stood  uneasily  near  her. 

"My  dearest  Lady  Crich,"  she  said,  "you  are  beautiful  as 
an  angel  on  earth.  Angel — angel — don't  you  think  she's  good 
enough  and  beautiful  enough  to  go  to  heaven,  Gudrun?  They 
will  be  in  heaven,  won't  they?  And  especially  my  darling 
Lady  Crich!     Mrs.  Marshall,  I  say!" 

"Yes,  Miss  Winifred?"  said  the  woman,  appearing  at  the 
door. 

"Oh,  do  call  this  one  Lady  Winifred,  if  she  turns  out  per- 
fect, will  you?     Do  tell  Marshall  to  call  it  Lady  Winifred?" 

"I'll  tell  him — but  I'm  afraid  that's  a  gentleman  puppy, 
Miss  Winifred." 

"Oh,  no!"  There  was  the  sound  of  a  car.  "There's 
Rupert!"  cried  the  child,  and  she  ran  to  the  gate. 

Birkin,  driving  his  car,  pulled  up  outside  the  lodge  gate. 

"We're  ready!"  cried  Winifred.  "I  want  to  sit  in  front 
with  you,  Rupert.     May  I?" 

"I'm  afraid  you'll  fidget  about  and  fall  out,"  he  said. 

"No  I  won't.  I  do  want  to  sit  in  front  next  to  you.  It 
makes  my  feet  so  lovely  and  warm,  from  the  engines." 

Birkin  helped  her  up,  amused  at  sending  Gerald  to  sit  by 
Gudrun  in  the  body  of  the  car. 

"Have  you  any  news,  Rupert?"  Gerald  called,  as  they 
rushed  along  the  lanes. 

"News?"  exclaimed  Birkin. 

"Yes."      Gerald  looked  at  Gudrun,  who  sat  by  his  side, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  321 

and  he  said,  his  eyes  narrowly  laughing,  "I  want  to  know 
whether  I  ought  to  congratulate  him,  but  I  can't  get  any  thing 
definite  out  of  him." 

Gudrun  flushed  deeply. 

"Congratulate  him  on  what?"  she  asked. 

"There  was  some  mention  of  an  engagement — at  least,  he 
said  something  to  me  about  it." 

Gudrun  flushed  darkly. 

"You  mean  with  Ursula?"  she  said,  in  challenge. 

"Yes.     That  is  so,  isn't  it?" 

"I  don't  think  there's  any  engagement,"  said  Gudrun 
coldly. 

"That  so?     Still  no  developments,  Rupert?"  he  called. 

"Where?     Matrimonial?     No." 

"How's  that?"  called  Gudrun. 

Birkin  glanced  quickly  round.  There  was  irritation  in 
his  eyes  also. 

"Why?"  he  replied.     "What  do  you  think  of  it,  Gudrun?" 

"Oh,"  she  cried,  determined  to  fling  her  stone  also  into  the 
pool,  since  they  had  begun,  "I  don't  think  she  wants  an  en- 
gagement. Naturally,  she's  a  bird  that  prefers  the  bush." 
Gudrun's  voice  was  clear  and  gong-like.  It  reminded  Rupert 
of  her  father's,  so  strong  and  vibrant. 

"And  I,"  said  Birkin,  his  face  playful  but  yet  determined, 
"I  want  a  binding  contract,  and  am  not  keen  on  love,  particu- 
larly free  love." 

They  were  both  amused.  Why  this  public  avowal?  Ger- 
ald seemed  suspended  a  moment,  in  amusement. 

"Love  isn't  good  enough  for  you?"  he  called. 

"No!"  shouted  Birkin. 

"Ha,  well  that's  being  over-refined,"  said  Gerald,  and  the 
car  ran  through  the  mud. 

"What's  the  matter,  really?"  said  Gerald,  turning  to 
Gudrun. 

This  was  an  assumption  of  a  sort  of  intimacy  that  irritated 
Gudrun  almost  like  an  affront.  It  seemed  to  her  that  Gerald 
was  deliberately  insulting  her,  and  infringing  on  the  decent 
privacy  of  them  all. 

"What  is  it?"  she  said,  in  her  high,  repellent  voice.    "Don't 


822  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

ask  me! — I  know  nothing  about  ultimate  marriage,  I  assure 
you:  or  even  penultimate." 

"Only  the  ordinary  unwarrantable  brand!"  replied  Gerald. 
"Just  so — same  here.  I  am  no  expert  on  marriage,  and  de- 
grees of  ultimateness.  It  seems  to  be  a  bee  that  buzzes  loud- 
ly in  Rupert's  bonnet." 

"Exactly!  But  that  is  his  trouble,  exactly!  Instead  of 
wanting  a  woman  for  herself,  he  wants  his  ideas  fulfilled. 
Which,  when  it  comes  to  actual  practice,  is  not  good  enough." 

"Oh  no.  Best  go  slap  for  what's  womanly  in  woman,  like 
a  bull  at  a  gate."  Then  he  seemed  to  glimmer  in  himself. 
"You  think  love  is  the  ticket,  do  you?"  he  asked. 

"Certainly,  while  it  lasts — you  only  can't  insist  on  per- 
manency," came  Gudrun's  voice,  strident  above  the  noise. 

"Marriage  or  no  marriage,  ultimate  or  penultimate,  or  just 
so-so? — take  the  love  as  you  find  it." 

"As  you  please,  or  as  you  don't  please,"  she  echoed.  "Mar- 
riage is  a  social  arrangement,  I  take  it,  and  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  question  of  love." 

His  eyes  were  flickering  on  her  all  the  time.  She  felt  as 
if  he  were  kissing  her  freely  and  malevolently.  It  made  the 
colour  burn  in  her  cheeks,  but  her  heart  was  quite  firm  and 
unfailing. 

"You  think  Rupert  is  off  his  head  a  bit?"  Gerald  asked. 

Her  eyes  flashed  with  acknowledgement. 

"As  regards  a  woman,  yes,"  she  said,  "I  do.  There  is 
such  a  thing  as  two  people  being  in  love  for  the  whole  of  their 
lives — perhaps.  But  marriage  is  neither  here  nor  there,  even 
then.  If  they  are  in  love,  well  and  good.  If  not — why 
break  eggs  about  it?" 

"Yes,"  said  Gerald.  "That's  how  it  strikes  me.  But 
what  about  Rupert?" 

"I  can't  make  out — neither  can  he  nor  anybody.  He 
seems  to  think  that  if  you  marry  you  can  get  through  mar- 
riage into  a  third  heaven,  or  something — all  very  vague." 

"Very!  And  who  wants  a  third  heaven?  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  Rupert  has  a  great  yearning  to  be  safe — to  tie  him- 
self to  the  mast." 

"Yes.      It  seems  to  me  he's  mistaken  there,  too,"  said 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  323 

Gudrun.  "I'm  sure  a  mistress  is  more  likely  to  be  faithful 
than  a  wife — just  because  she  is  her  own  mistress.  No — he 
says  he  believes  that  a  man  and  wife  can  go  further  than  any 
other  two  beings — but  where,  is  not  explained.  They  can 
know  each  other,  heavenly  and  hellish,  but  particularly  hell- 
ish, so  perfectly  that  they  go  beyond  heaven  and  hell — into — 
there  it  all  breaks  down — into  nowhere." 

"Into  Paradise,  he  says,"  laughed  Gerald. 

Gudrun  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "Je  m'en  fiche  of  your 
Paradise!"  she  said. 

"Not  being  a  Mohammedan,"  said  Gerald.  Birkin  sat 
motionless,  driving  the  car,  quite  unconscious  of  what  they 
said.  And  Gudrun,  sitting  immediately  behind  him,  felt  a 
sort  of  ironic  pleasure  in  thus  exposing  him. 

"He  says,"  she  added,  with  a  grimace  of  irony,  "that  you 
can  find  an  eternal  equilibrium  in  marriage,  if  you  accept  the 
unison,  and  still  leave  yourself  separate,  don't  try  to  fuse." 

"Doesn't  inspire  me,"  said  Gerald. 

"That's  just  it,"  said  Gudrun. 

"I  believe  in  love,  in  a  real  abandon,  if  you're  capable  of 
it,"  said  Gerald. 

"So  do  I,"  said  she. 

"And  so  does  Rupert,  too — though  he  is  always  shout- 
ing." 

"No,"  said  Gudrun.  "He  won't  abandon  himself  to  the 
other  person.  You  can't  be  sure  of  him.  That's  the  trouble, 
I  think." 

"Yet  he  wants  marriage! — Marriage — et  puis?" 

"Le  paradis!"  mocked  Gudrun. 

Birkin,  as  he  drove,  felt  a  creeping  of  the  spine,  as  if  some- 
body was  threatening  his  neck.  But  he  shrugged  with  indif- 
ference. It  began  to  rain.  Here  was  a  change.  He  stopped 
the  car  and  got  down  to  put  up  the  hood. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

T[EY  came  to  the  town,  and  left  Gerald  at  the  railway 
station.  Gudrun  and  Winifred  were  to  come  to  tea 
with  Birkin,  who  expected  Ursula  also.  In  the  after- 
noon, however,  the  first  person  to  turn  up  was  Hermione. 
Birkin  was  out,  so  she  went  in  the  drawing-room,  looking  at 
his  books  and  papers,  and  playing  on  the  piano.  Then  Ursula 
arrived.  She  was  surprised,  unpleasantly  so,  to  see  Hermione, 
of  whom  she  had  heard  nothing  for  some  time. 

"It  is  a  surprise  to  see  you,"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  said  Hermione.     "I've  been  away  at  Aix — " 

"Oh,  for  your  health?" 

"Yes." 

The  two  women  looked  at  each  other.  Ursula  resented 
Hermione's  long,  grave,  downward-looking  face.  There  was 
something  of  the  stupidity  and  the  unenlightened  self-esteem 
of  a  horse  in  it.  "She's  got  a  horse-face,"  Ursula  said  to  her- 
self, "she  runs  between  blinkers."  It  did  seem  as  if  Her- 
mione, like  the  moon,  had  only  one  side  to  her  penny.  There 
was  no  obverse.  She  stared  out  all  the  time  on  the  narrow, 
but  to  her,  complete  world  of  the  extant  consciousness.  In 
the  darkness,  she  did  not  exist.  Like  the  moon,  one-half  of 
her  was  lost  to  life.  Her  self  was  all  in  her  head,  she  did  not 
know  what  it  was,  spontaneously  to  run  or  move,  like  a  fish 
in  the  water,  or  a  weasel  on  the  grass.    She  must  always  know. 

But  Ursula  only  suffered  from  Hermione's  one-sidedness. 
She  only  felt  Hermione's  cool  evidence,  which  seemed  to  put 
her  down  as  nothing.  Hermione,  who  brooded  and  brooded 
till  she  was  exhausted  with  the  ache  of  her  effort  at  conscious- 
ness, spent  and  ashen  in  her  body,  who  gained  so  slowly  and 
with  such  effort  her  final  and  barren  conclusions  of  knowledge, 
was  apt,  in  the  presence  of  other  women,  whom  she  thought 
simply  female,  to  wear  the  conclusions  of  her  bitter  assurance 
like  jewels  which  conferred  on  her  an  unquestionable  distinc- 
tion, established  her  in  a  higher  order  of  life.      She  was  apt, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  325 

mentally,  to  condescend  to  women  such  as  Ursula,  whom  she 
regarded  as  purely  emotional.  Poor  Hermione,  it  was  her  one 
possession,  this  aching  certainty  of  hers,  it  was  her  only  justi- 
fication. She  must  be  confident  here,  for  God  knows,  she  felt 
rejected  and  deficient  enough  elsewhere.  In  the  life  of  thought, 
of  the  spirit,  she  was  one  of  the  elect.  And  she  wanted  to  be 
universal.  But  there  was  a  devastating  cynicism  at  the  bot- 
tom of  her.  She  did  not  believe  in  her  own  universals — they 
were  sham.  She  did  not  believe  in  the  inner  life — it  was  a 
trick,  not  a  reality.  She  did  not  believe  in  the  spiritual 
world — it  was  an  affectation.  In  the  last  resort,  she  believed 
in  Mammon,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil — these  at  least  were  not 
sham.  She  was  a  priestess  without  belief,  without  conviction, 
suckled  in  a  creed  outworn,  and  condemned  to  the  reiteration 
of  mysteries  that  were  not  divine  to  her.  Yet  there  was  no 
escape.  She  was  a  leaf  upon  a  dying  tree.  What  help  was 
there  then,  but  to  fight  still  for  the  old,  withered  truths,  to 
die  for  the  old,  outworn  belief,  to  be  a  sacred  and  inviolate 
priestess  of  desecrated  mysteries?  The  old  great  truths  had 
been  true.  And  she  was  a  leaf  of  the  old  great  tree  of  knowl- 
edge that  was  withering  now.  To  the  old  and  last  truth  then 
she  must  be  faithful,  even  though  cynicism  and  mockery  took 
place  at  the  bottom  of  her  soul. 

"I  am  so  glad  to  see  you,"  she  said  to  Ursula,  in  her  slow 
voice,  that  was  like  an  incantation.  "You  and  Rupert  have 
become  quite  friends?" 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Ursula.  "He  is  always  somewhere  in  the 
background." 

Hermione  paused  before  she  answered.  She  saw  perfectly 
well  the  other  woman's  vaunt;  it  seemed  truly  vulgar. 

"Is  he?"  she  said  slowly,  and  with  perfect  equanimity. 
"And  do  you  think  you  will  marry?" 

The  question  was  so  calm  and  mild,  so  simple  and  bare 
and  dispassionate  that  Ursula  was  somewhat  taken  aback, 
rather  attracted.  It  pleased  her  almost  like  a  wickedness. 
There  was  some  delightful  naked  irony  in  Hermione. 

"Well,"  replied  Ursula,  "he  wants  to,  awfully,  but  I'm  not 
so  sure." 

Hermione  watched  her  with  slow,  calm  eyes.     She  noted 


326  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

this  new  expression  of  vaunting.  How  she  envied  Ursula  a 
certain  unconscious  positivity!     Even  her  vulgarity! 

"Why  aren't  you  sure?"  she  asked,  in  her  easy  sing-song. 
She  was  perfectly  at  her  ease,  perhaps  even  rather  happy  in 
this  conversation.      "You  don't  really  love  him?" 

Ursula  flushed  a  little  at  the  mild  impertinence  of  this 
question.  And  yet  she  could  not  definitely  take  offence. 
Hermione  seemed  so  calmly  and  sanely  candid.  After  all,  it 
was  rather  great  to  be  able  to  be  so  sane. 

"He  says  it  isn't  love  he  wants,"  she  replied. 

"What  is  it  then?"     Hermione  was  slow  and  level. 

"He  wants  me  really  to  accept  him  in  marriage." 

Hermione  was  silent  for  some  time,  watching  Ursula  with 
slow,  pensive  eyes. 

"Does  he?"  she  said  at  length,  without  expression.  Then, 
rousing,  "And  what  is  it  you  don't  want?  You  don't  want 
marriage?" 

"No — I  don't — not  really.  I  don't  want  to  give  the  sort 
of  submission  he  insists  on.  He  wants  me  to  give  myself  up 
— and  I  simply  don't  feel  that  I  can  do  it." 

Again  there  was  a  long  pause,  before  Hermione  replied: 

"Not  if  you  don't  want  to."  Then  again  there  was  silence. 
Hermione  shuddered  with  a  strange  desire.  Ah,  if  only  he 
had  asked  her  to  subserve  him,  to  be  his  slave!  She  shuddered 
with  desire. 

"You  see  I  can't — " 

"But  exactly  in  what  does — " 

They  had  both  begun  at  once,  they  both  stopped.  Then 
Hermione  assuming  priority  of  speech,  resumed  as  if  wearily: 

"To  what  does  he  want  you  to  submit?" 

"He  says  he  wants  me  to  accept  him  non-emotionally,  and 
finally — I  really  don't  know  what  he  means.  He  says  he 
wants  the  demon  part  of  himself  to  be  mated — physically — 
not  the  human  being.  You  see  he  says  one  thing  one  day, 
and  another  the  next — and  he  always  contradicts  himself." 

"And  always  thinks  about  himself,  and  his  own  dissatis- 
faction," said  Hermione,  slowly. 

"Yes,"  cried  Ursula.  "As  if  there  were  no  one  but  himself 
concerned.     That  makes  it  so  impossible." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  SS7 

But  immediately  she  began  to  retract. 

"He  insists  on  my  accepting  God  knows  what  in  him,"  she 
resumed.  "He  wants  me  to  accept  him  as — as  an  absolute — 
But  it  seems  to  me  he  doesn't  want  to  give  anything.  He 
doesn't  want  real  warm  intimacy — he  won't  have  it — he  re- 
jects it.  He  won't  let  me  think,  really,  and  he  won't  let  me 
feel — he  hates  feelings." 

There  was  a  long  pause,  bitter  for  Hermione.  Ah,  if  only 
he  would  have  made  this  demand  of  her?  Her  he  drove  into 
thought,  drove  inexorably  into  knowledge — and  then  execrated 
her  for  it. 

"He  wants  me  to  sink  myself,"  Ursula  resumed,  "not  to 
have  any  being  of  my  own — " 

"Then  why  doesn't  he  marry  an  odalisk?"  said  Hermione, 
in  her  mild  sing-song,  "if  it  is  that  he  wants."  Her  long  face 
looked  sardonic  and  amused. 

"Yes,"  said  Ursula,  vaguely.  After  all,  the  tiresome  thing 
was,  he  did  not  want  an  odalisk,  he  did  not  want  a  slave. 
Hermione  would  have  been  his  slave — there  was  in  her  a  hor- 
rible desire  to  prostrate  herself  before  a  man — a  man  who  wor- 
shipped her,  however,  and  admitted  her  as  the  supreme  thing. 
— He  did  not  want  an  odalisk.  He  wanted  a  woman  to  take 
something  from  him,  to  give  herself  up  so  much  that  she  could 
take  the  last  realities  of  him,  the  last  facts,  the  last  physical 
facts,  physical  and  unbearable. 

And  if  she  did,  would  he  acknowledge  her?  Would  he  be 
able  to  acknowledge  her  through  everything,  or  would  he  use 
her  just  as  his  instrument,  use  her  for  his  own  private  satis- 
faction, not  admitting  her?  That  was  what  the  other  men 
had  done.  They  had  wanted  their  own  show,  and  they  would 
not  admit  her,  they  turned  all  she  was  into  nothingness.  Just 
as  Hermione  now  betrayed  herself  as  a  woman.  Hermione 
was  like  a  man,  she  believed  only  in  men's  things.  She  be- 
trayed the  woman  in  herself. — And  Birkin,  would  he  acknowl- 
edge, or  would  he  deny  her? 

"Yes,"  said  Hermione,  as  each  woman  came  out  of  her  own 
separate  reverie.  "It  would  be  a  mistake — I  think  it  would 
be  a  mistake — " 

"To  marry  him?"  asked  Ursula. 


8*8  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Yes,"  said  Hermione,  slowly.  "I  think  you  need  a  man — 
soldierly,  strong-willed."  Hermione  held  out  her  hand  and 
clenched  it  with  rhapsodic  intensity.  "You  should  have  a 
man  like  the  old  heroes — you  need  to  stand  behind  him  as  he 
goes  into  battle,  you  need  to  see  his  strength,  and  to  hear  his 
shout.  .  .  .  You  need  a  man  physically  strong,  and  virile  in  his 
will,  not  a  sensitive  man."  . . .  There  was  a  break,  as  if  the  py- 
thoness had  uttered  the  oracle,  and  now  the  woman  went  on, 
in  a  rhapsody- wearied  voice:  "And  you  see,  Rupert  isn't  this, 
he  isn't.  He  is  frail  in  health  and  body,  he  needs  great,  great 
care.  Then  he  is  so  changeable  and  unsure  of  himself — it 
requires  the  greatest  patience  and  understanding  to  help  him. 
And  I  don't  think  you  are  patient.  You  would  have  to  be 
prepared  to  suffer — dreadfully.  I  can't  tell  you  how  much 
suffering  it  would  take  to  make  him  happy.  He  lives  an 
intensely  spiritual  life,  at  times — too,  too  wonderful.  And  then 
come  the  reactions. — I  can't  speak  of  what  I  have  been  through 
with  him. — We  have  been  together  so  long,  I  really  do  know 
him,  I  do  know  what  he  is. — And  I  feel  I  must  say  it;  I  feel 
it  would  be  perfectly  disastrous  for  you  to  marry  him — for 
you  even  more  than  for  him."  Hermione  lapsed  into  bitter 
reverie.  "He  is  so  uncertain,  so  unstable — he  wearies,  and 
then  reacts.  I  couldn't  tell  you  what  his  reactions  are.  I 
couldn't  tell  you  the  agony  of  them. — That  which  he  affirms 
and  loves  one  day — a  little  later  he  turns  on  it  in  a  fury  of 
destruction.  He  is  never  constant,  always  this  awful,  dread- 
ful reaction.  Always  the  quick  change  from  good  to  bad,  bad 
to  good.      And  nothing  is  so  devastating,  nothing — " 

"Yes,"  said  Ursula  humbly,  "you  must  have  suffered." 

An  unearthly  light  came  on  Hermione's  face.  She  clenched 
her  hand  like  one  inspired. 

"And  one  must  be  willing  to  suffer — willing  to  suffer  for 
him  hourly,  daily — if  you  are  going  to  help  him,  if  he  is  to 
keep  true  to  anything  at  all." 

"And  I  don't  want  to  suffer  hourly  and  daily,"  said  Ursula. 
"I  don't,  I  should  be  ashamed.  I  think  it  is  degrading  not 
to  be  happy." 

Hermione  stopped  and  looked  at  her  a  long  time. 

"Do  you?"  she  said  at  last.      And  this  utterance  seemed 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  329 

to  her  a  mark  of  Ursula's  far  distance  from  herself.  For  to 
Hermione  suffering  was  the  greatest  reality,  come  what  might. 
Yet  she,  too,  had  a  creed  of  happiness. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "One  should  be  happy."  But  it  was  a 
matter  of  will. 

"Yes,"  said  Hermione,  listlessly  now,  "I  can  only  feel  that 
it  would  be  disastrous,  disastrous — at  least,  to  marry  in  a 
hurry.  Can't  you  be  together  without  marriage?  Can't  you 
go  away  and  live  somewhere  without  marriage?  I  do  feel 
that  marriage  would  be  fatal,  for  both  of  you.  I  think  for 
you  even  more  than  for  him — and  I  think  of  his  health — " 

"Of  course,"  said  Ursula,  "J  don't  care  about  marriage — 
it  isn't  really  important  to  me — it's  he  who  wants  it." 

"It  is  his  idea  for  the  moment,"  said  Hermione,  with  that 
weary  finality,  and  a  sort  of  si  jeunesse  savait  infallibility. 

There  was  a  pause.  Then  Ursula  broke  into  faltering 
challenge. 

"You  think  I'm  merely  a  physical  woman,  don't  you?" 

"No,  indeed,"  said  Hermione.  "No,  indeed!  But  I 
think  you  are  vital  and  young — it  isn't  a  question  of  years,  or 
even  of  experience — it  is  almost  a  question  of  race.  Rupert 
is  race-old,  he  comes  of  an  old  race — and  you  seem  to  me  so 
young,  you  come  of  a  young,  inexperienced  race." 

"Do  I?"  said  Ursula.  "But  I  think  he  is  awfully  young, 
on  one  side." 

"Yes,  perhaps — childish  in  many  respects.  Neverthe- 
less— " 

They  both  lapsed  into  silence.  Ursula  was  filled  with  deep 
resentment  and  a  touch  of  hopelessness.  "It  isn't  true,"  she 
said  to  herself,  silently  addressing  her  adversary.  "It  isn't 
true.  And  it  is  you  who  want  a  physically  strong,  bullying 
man,  not  I.  It  is  you  who  want  an  unsensitive  man,  not  I. 
You  don't  know  anything  about  Rupert,  not  really,  in  spite 
of  the  years  you  have  had  with  him.  You  don't  give  him  a 
woman's  love,  you  give  him  an  ideal  love,  and  that  is  why  he 
reacts  away  from  you.  You  don't  know.  You  only  know 
the  dead  things.  Any  kitchen  maid  would  know  something 
about  him,  you  don't  know.  What  do  you  think  your  knowl- 
edge is  but  dead  understanding,  that  doesn't  mean  a  thing. 


330  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

You  are  so  false,  and  untrue,  how  could  you  know  anything? 
What  is  the  good  of  your  talking  about  love.  You  untrue 
spectre  of  a  woman !  How  can  you  know  anything,  when  you 
don't  believe?  You  don't  believe  in  yourself  and  your  own 
womanhood,  so  what  good  is  your  conceited,  shallow  clever- 
ness— !" 

The  two  women  sat  on  in  an  antagonistic  silence.  Her- 
mione  felt  injured,  that  all  her  good  intention,  all  her  offer- 
ing, only  left  the  other  woman  in  vulgar  antagonism.  But 
then,  Ursula  could  not  understand,  never  would  understand, 
could  never  be  more  than  the  usual  jealous  and  unreasonable 
female,  with  a  good  deal  of  powerful  female  emotion,  female 
attraction,  and  a  fair  amount  of  female  understanding,  but  no 
mind.  Hermione  had  decided  long  ago  that  where  there  was 
no  mind,  it  was  useless  to  appeal  for  reason — one  had  merely 
to  ignore  the  ignorant.  And  Rupert — he  had  now  reacted 
towards  the  strongly  female,  healthy,  selfish  woman — it  was 
his  reaction  for  the  time  being — there  was  no  helping  it  all. 
It  was  all  a  foolish  backward  and  forward,  a  violent  oscillation 
that  would  at  length  be  too  violent  for  his  coherency,  and  he 
would  smash  and  be  dead.  There  was  no  saving  him.  This 
violent  and  directionless  reaction  between  animalism  and 
spiritual  truth  would  go  on  in  him  till  he  tore  himself  in  two 
between  the  opposite  directions,  and  disappeared  meaninglessly 
out  of  life.  It  was  no  good ...  he,  too,  was  without  unity, 
without  mind,  in  the  ultimate  stages  of  living;  not  quite  man 
enough  to  make  a  destiny  for  a  woman. 

They  sat  on  till  Birkin  came  in  and  found  them  together. 
He  felt  at  once  the  antagonism  in  the  atmosphere,  something 
radical  and  insuperable,  and  he  bit  his  lip.  But  he  affected 
a  bluff  manner. 

"Hello,  Hermione,  are  you  back  again?    How  do  you  feel?" 
"Oh,  better.     And  how  are  you — you  don't  look  well." 
"Oh! — I  believe  Gudrun  and  Winnie  Crich  are  coming  in 
to  tea.    At  least  they  said  they  were.    We  shall  be  a  tea-party. 
What  train  did  you  come  by,  Ursula?" 

It  was  rather  annoying  to  see  him  trying  to  placate  both 
women  at  once.  Both  women  watched  him,  Hermione  with 
deep  resentment  and  pity  for  him,  Ursula  very  impatient.     He 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  331 

was  nervous  and  apparently  in  quite  good  spirits,  chattering 
the  conventional  commonplaces.  Ursula  was  amazed  and  in- 
dignant at  the  way  he  made  small-talk;  he  was  adept  as  any 
fat  in  Christendom.  She  became  quite  stiff,  she  would  not 
answer.  It  all  seemed  to  her  so  false  and  so  belittling.  And 
still  Gudrun  did  not  appear. 

"I  think  I  shall  go  to  Florence  for  the  winter,"  said  Her- 
mione  at  length. 

"Will  you?"  he  answered.     "But  it  is  so  cold  there." 

"Yes,  but  I  shall  stay  with  Palestra.  It  is  quite  comfort- 
able." 

"What  takes  you  to  Florence?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Hermione  slowly.  Then  she  looked 
at  him  with  her  slow,  heavy  gaze.  "Barnes  is  starting  his 
school  of  aesthetics,  and  Olandese  is  going  to  give  a  set  of  dis- 
courses on  the  Italian  national  policy — " 

"Both  rubbish,"  he  said. 

"No,  I  don't  think  so,"  said  Hermione. 

"Which  do  you  admire,  then?" 

"I  admire  both.  Barnes  is  a  pioneer.  And  then  I  am 
interested  in  Italy,  in  her  coming  to  national  consciousness." 

"I  wish  she'd  come  to  something  different  from  national 
consciousness,  then,"  said  Birkin;  "especially  as  it  only  means 
a  sort  of  commercial-industrial  consciousness.  I  hate  Italy 
and  her  national  rant. — And  I  think  Barnes  is  an  amateur." 

Hermione  was  silent  for  some  moments,  in  a  state  of  hos- 
tility. But  yet,  she  had  got  Birkin  back  again  into  her  world! 
How  subtle  her  influence  was,  she  seemed  to  start  his  irritable 
attention  into  her  direction  exclusively,  in  one  minute.  He 
was  her  creature. 

"No,"  she  said,  "you  are  wrong."  Then  a  sort  of  tension 
came  over  her,  she  raised  her  face  like  the  pythoness  inspired 
with  oracles,  and  went  on,  in  rhapsodic  manner:  "II  Sandro 
mi  scrive  che  ha  accolto  il  piu  grande  entusiasmo,  tutti  i 
giovani,  e  fanciulle  e  ragazzi,  sono  tutti.". . .  She  went  on  in 
Italian,  as  if,  in  thinking  of  the  Italians  she  thought  in  their 
language. 

He  listened  with  a  shade  of  distaste  to  her  rhapsody,  then 
he  said: 


332  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"For  all  that,  I  don't  like  it.  Their  nationalism  is  just 
industrialism, — that  and  a  shallow  jealousy  I  detest  so  much." 

"I  think  you  are  wrong — I  think  you  are  wrong — "  said 
Hermione.  "It  seems  to  me  purely  spontaneous  and  beautiful, 
the  modern  Italian's  passion,  for  it  is  a  passion,  for  Italy, 
L'ltalia— " 

"Do  you  know  Italy  well?"  Ursula  asked  of  Hermione. 
Hermione  hated  to  be  broken  in  upon  in  this  manner.  Yet 
she  answered  mildly: 

"Yes,  pretty  well.  I  spent  several  years  of  my  girlhood 
there,  with  my  mother.     My  mother  died  in  Florence." 

"Oh!" 

There  was  a  pause,  painful  to  Ursula  and  to  Birkin.  Her- 
mione, however,  seemed  abstracted  and  calm.  Birkin  was 
white,  his  eyes  glowed  as  if  he  were  in  a  fever,  he  was  far  too 
over-wrought.  How  Ursula  suffered  in  this  tense  atmosphere 
of  strained  wills!  Her  head  seemed  bound  round  by  iron 
bands. 

Birkin  rang  the  bell  for  tea.  They  could  not  wait  for 
Gudrun  any  longer.  When  the  door  was  opened,  the  cat 
walked  in. 

"Micio!  Micio!"  called  Hermione,  in  her  slow,  deliberate 
sing-song.  The  young  cat  turned  to  look  at  her,  then,  with 
his  slow  and  stately  walk  he  advanced  to  her  side. 

"Vieni — vieni  qua,"  Hermione  was  saying,  in  her  strange 
caressive,  protective  voice,  as  if  she  were  always  the  elder,  the 
mother  superior.  "Vieni  dire  Buon'  Giorno  alia  zia.  Mi 
ricorde,  mi  ricorde  bene — non  e  vero,  piccolo?  fi  vero  che 
mi  ricordi?  £  vero?"  And  slowly  she  rubbed  his  head,  slowly 
and  with  ironic  indifference. 

"Does  he  understand  Italian?"  said  Ursula,  who  knew 
nothing  of  the  language. 

"Yes,"  said  Hermione  at  length.  "His  mother  was  Italian. 
She  was  born  in  my  waste-paper  basket  in  Florence,  on  the 
morning  of  Rupert's  birthday.     She  was  his  birthday  present." 

Tea  was  brought  in.  Birkin  poured  out  for  them.  It  was 
strange  how  inviolable  was  the  intimacy  which  existed  between 
him  and  Hermione.  Ursula  felt  that  she  was  an  outsider. 
The  very  tea-cups  and  the  old  silver  was  a  bond  between  Her- 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  333 

mione  and  Birkin.  It  seemed  to  belong  to  an  old,  past  world 
which  they  had  inhabited  together,  and  in  which  Ursula  was 
a  foreigner.  She  was  almost  a  parvenue  in  their  old  cultured 
milieu.  Her  convention  was  not  their  convention,  their  stand- 
ards were  not  her  standards.  But  theirs  were  established, 
they  had  the  sanction  and  the  grace  of  age.  He  and  she 
together,  Hermione  and  Birkin,  were  people  of  the  same  old 
tradition,  the  same  withered  deadening  culture.  And  she, 
Ursula,  was  an  intruder.     So  they  always  made  her  feel. 

Hermione  poured  a  little  cream  into  a  saucer.  The  sim- 
ple way  she  assumed  her  rights  in  Birkin's  room  maddened 
and  discouraged  Ursula.  There  was  a  fatality  about  it,  as 
if  it  were  bound  to  be.  Hermione  lifted  the  cat  and  put  the 
cream  before  him.  He  planted  his  two  paws  on  the  edge  of 
the  table  and  bent  his  gracious  young  head  to  drink. 

"Siccuro  che  capisce  italiano,"  sang  Hermione,"non  l'avra 
dimenticato,  la  lingua  della  Mamma." 

She  lifted  the  cat's  head  with  her  long,  slow,  white  fingers, 
not  letting  him  drink,  holding  him  in  her  power.  It  was  al- 
ways the  same,  this  joy  in  power  she  manifested,  peculiarly  in 
power  over  any  male  being.  He  blinked  forbearingly,  with  a 
male,  bored  expression,  licking  his  whiskers.  Hermione 
laughed  in  her  short,  grunting  fashion. 

"Ecco,  il  bravo  ragazzo,  come  e  superbo,  questo!" 

She  made  a  vivid  picture,  so  calm  and  strange,  with  the 
cat.  She  had  a  true  static  impressiveness,  she  was  a  social 
artist  in  some  ways. 

The  cat  refused  to  look  at  her,  indifferently  avoided  her 
fingers,  and  began  to  drink  again,  his  nose  down  to  the  cream, 
perfectly  balanced,  as  he  lapped  with  his  odd  little  click. 

"It's  bad  for  him,  teaching  him  to  eat  at  table,"  said 
Birkin. 

"Yes,"  said  Hermione,  easily  assenting. 

Then,  looking  down  at  the  cat,  she  resumed  her  old,  mock- 
ing, humourous  sing-song: 

"Ti  imparano  fare  brutte  cose,  brutte  cose ..." 

Sin-  lifted  the  Mino's  white  chin  on  her  fore-finger,  slowly. 
The  young  cat  looked  round  with  a  supremely  forbearing  air, 
avoided  seeing  anything,  withdrew  his  chin,  and  began  to 


334  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

wash  his  face  with  his  paw.  Hermione  grunted  her  laughter, 
pleased. 

"Bel  giovanotto,"  she  said. 

The  cat  reached  forward  again  and  put  his  fine  white  paw 
on  the  edge  of  the  saucer.  Hermione  lifted  it  down  with  deli- 
cate slowness.  This  deliberate,  delicate  carefulness  of  move- 
ment reminded  Ursula  of  Gudrun. 

"No!  Non  e  permesso  di  mettere  il  zampino  nel  tondi- 
netto.    Non  piace  al  babbo.    Un  signor  gatto  cosl  selvatico — !" 

And  she  kept  her  finger  on  the  softly  planted  paw  of  the 
cat,  and  her  voice  had  the  same  whimsical,  humourous  note 
of  bullying. 

Ursula  had  her  nose  out  of  joint.  She  wanted  to  go  away 
now.  It  all  seemed  no  good.  Hermione  was  established  for 
ever,  she  herself  was  ephemeral  and  had  not  yet  even  arrived. 

"I  will  go  now,"  she  said,  suddenly. 

Birkin  looked  at  her  almost  in  fear — he  so  dreaded  her 
anger. 

"But  there  is  no  need  for  such  hurry,"  he  said. 

"Yes,"  she  answered.  "I  will  go."  And  turning  to  Her- 
mione, before  there  was  time  to  say  any  more,  she  held  out 
her  hand  and  said  "Good-bye." 

"Good-bye,"  sang  Hermione,  detaining  the  hand.  "Must 
you  really  go  now?" 

"Yes,  I  think  I'll  go,"  said  Ursula,  her  face  set,  and  averted 
from  Hermione's  eyes. 

"You  think  you  will — " 

But  Ursula  had  got  her  hand  free.  She  turned  to  Birkin 
with  a  quick,  almost  jeering:  "Good-bye,"  and  she  was  open- 
ing the  door  before  he  had  time  to  do  it  for  her. 

When  she  got  outside  the  house  she  ran  down  the  road  in 
fury  and  agitation.  It  was  strange,  the  unreasoning  rage  and 
violence  Hermione  roused  in  her,  by  her  very  presence.  Ursula 
knew  she  gave  herself  away  to  the  other  woman,  she  knew  she 
looked  ill-bred,  uncouth,  exaggerated.  But  she  did  not  care. 
She  only  ran  up  the  road,  lest  she  should  go  back  and  jeer  in 
the  faces  of  the  two  she  had  left  behind.  For  they  outraged 
her. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

NEXT  day  Birkin  sought  Ursula  out.  It  happened  to  be 
the  half-day  at  the  Grammar  School.  He  appeared 
towards  the  end  of  the  morning,  and  asked  her,  would 
she  drive  with  him  in  the  afternoon.  She  consented.  But 
her  face  was  closed  and  unresponding,  and  his  heart  sank. 

The  afternoon  was  fine  and  dim.  He  was  driving  the 
motor-car,  and  she  sat  beside  him.  But  still  her  face  was 
closed  against  him,  unresponding.  When  she  became  like 
this,  like  a  wall  against  him,  his  heart  contracted. 

His  life  now  seemed  so  reduced,  that  he  hardly  cared  any 
more.  At  moments  it  seemed  to  him  he  did  not  care  a  straw 
whether  Ursula  or  Hermione  or  anybody  else  existed  or  did 
not  exist.  Why  bother!  Why  strive  for  a  coherent,  satis- 
fied life?  Why  not  drift  on  in  a  series  of  accidents — like  a 
picaresque  novel.  Why  not?  Why  bother  about  human 
relationships?  Why  take  them  seriously — male  or  female? 
Why  form  any  serious  connections  at  all?  Why  not  be  casual, 
drifting  along,  taking  all  for  what  it  was  worth? 

And  yet,  still,  he  was  damned  and  doomed  to  the  old  effort 
at  serious  living. 

"Look,"  he  said,  "what  I  bought."  The  car  was  running 
along  a  broad  white  road,  between  autumn  trees. 

He  gave  her  a  little  bit  of  screwed-up  paper.  She  took 
it  and  opened  it. 

"How  lovely,"  she  cried. 

She  examined  the  gift. 

"How  perfectly  lovely!"  she  cried  again.  "But  why  do 
you  give  them  me?"     She  put  the  question  offensively. 

His  face  flickered  with  bored  irritation.  He  shrugged  his 
shoulders  slightly. 

"I  wanted  to,"  he  said,  coolly. 

"But  why?     Why  should  you?" 

"Am  I  called  on  to  find  reasons?"  he  asked. 

335 


336  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

There  was  a  silence,  whilst  she  examined  the  rings  that 
had  been  screwed  up  in  the  paper. 

"I  think  they  are  beautiful,"  she  said,  "especially  this. 
This  is  wonderful." 

It  was  a  round  opal,  red  and  fiery,  set  in  a  circle  of  tiny 
rubies. 

"You  like  that  best?"  he  said. 

"I  think  I  do." 

"I  like  the  sapphire,"  he  said. 

"This?" 

It  was  a  rose-shaped,  beautiful  sapphire,  with  small  bril- 
liants. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "it  is  lovely."  She  held  it  in  the  light. 
"Yes,  perhaps  it  is  the  best." 

"The  blue—"  he  said. 

"Yes,  wonderful." 

He  suddenly  swung  the  car  out  of  the  way  of  a  farm-cart. 
It  tilted  on  the  bank.  He  was  a  careless  driver,  yet  very 
quick.  But  Ursula  was  frightened.  There  was  always  that 
something  regardless  in  him  which  terrified  her.  She  sud- 
denly felt  he  might  kill  her,  by  making  some  dreadful  accident 
with  the  motor-car.     For  a  moment  she  was  stony  with  fear. 

"Isn't  it  rather  dangerous,  the  way  you  drive?"  she  asked 
him. 

"No,  it  isn't  dangerous,"  he  said.  And  then,  after  a 
pause:   "Don't  you  like  the  yellow  ring  at  all?" 

It  was  a  squarish  topaz  set  in  a  frame  of  steel,  or  some 
other  similar  mineral,  finely  wrought. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "I  do  like  it.  But  why  did  you  buy  these 
rings?" 

"I  wanted  them.     They  are  second-hand." 

"You  bought  them  for  yourself?" 

"No.     Rings  look  wrong  on  my  hands." 

"Why  did  you  buy  them  then?" 

"I  bought  them  to  give  to  you." 

"But  why?  Surely  you  ought  to  give  them  to  Hermione! 
You  belong  to  her." 

He  did  not  answer.  She  remained  with  the  jewels  shut  in 
her  hand.     She  wanted  to  try  them  on  her  fingers,  but  some- 


women  m  love  ss? 

thing  in  her  would  not  let  her.  And  moreover,  she  was  afraid 
her  hands  were  too  large,  she  shrank  from  the  mortification  of 
a  failure  to  put  them  on  any  but  her  little  finger.  They 
travelled  in  silence  through  the  empty  lanes. 

Driving  in  a  motor-car  excited  her,  she  forgot  his  presence 
even. 

"Where  are  we?"  she  asked  suddenly. 

"Not  far  from  Worksop." 

"And  where  are  we  going?" 

"Anywhere." 

It  was  the  answer  she  liked. 

She  opened  her  hand  to  look  at  the  rings.  They  gave  her 
such  pleasure,  as  they  lay,  the  three  circles,  with  their  knotted 
jewels,  entangled  in  her  palm.  She  would  have  to  try  them 
on.  She  did  so  secretly,  unwilling  to  let  him  see,  so  that  he 
should  not  know  her  finger  was  too  large  for  them.  But  he 
saw  nevertheless.  He  always  saw,  if  she  wanted  him  not  to. 
It  was  another  of  his  hateful,  watchful  characteristics. 

Only  the  opal,  with  its  thin  wire  loop,  would  go  on  her 
ring  finger.  And  she  was  superstitious.  No,  there  was  ill- 
portent  enough,  she  would  not  accept  this  ring  from  him  in 
pledge. 

"Look,"  she  said,  putting  forward  her  hand,  that  was  half- 
closed  and  shrinking.     "The  others  don't  fit  me." 

He  looked  at  the  red-glinting,  soft  stone,  on  her  over-sen- 
sitive skin. 

"Yes,"  he  said. 

"But  opals  are  unlucky,  aren't  they?"  she  said  wistfully. 

"No.  I  prefer  unlucky  things.  Luck  is  vulgar.  Who 
wants  what  luck  would  bring?     I  don't." 

"But  why?"  she  laughed. 

And,  consumed  with  a  desire  to  see  how  the  other  rings 
would  look  on  her  hand,  she  put  them  on  her  little  finger. 

"They  can  be  made  a  little  bigger,"  he  said. 

"Yes,"  she  replied,  doubtfully.  And  she  sighed.  She 
knew  that,  in  accepting  the  rings,  she  was  accepting  a  pledge. 
Yet  fate  seemed  more  than  herself.  She  looked  again  at  the 
jewels.  They  were  very  beautiful  to  her  eyes — not  as  orna- 
ment, or  wealth,  but  as  tiny  fragments  of  loveliness. 


338  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"I'm  glad  you  bought  them,"  she  said,  putting  her  hand, 
half  unwillingly,  gently  on  his  arm. 

He  smiled,  slightly.  He  wanted  her  to  come  to  him.  But 
he  was  angry  at  the  bottom  of  his  soul,  and  indifferent.  He 
knew  she  had  a  passion  for  him,  really.  But  it  was  not  finally 
interesting.  There  were  depths  of  passion  when  one  became 
impersonal  and  indifferent,  unemotional.  Whereas  Ursula  was 
still  at  the  emotional  personal  level — always  so  abominably  per- 
sonal. He  had  taken  her  as  he  had  never  been  taken  him- 
self. He  had  taken  her  at  the  roots  of  her  darkness  and  shame 
— like  a  demon,  laughing  over  the  fountain  of  mystic  corrup- 
tion which  was  one  of  the  sources  of  her  being,  laughing, 
shrugging,  accepting,  accepting  finally.  As  for  her,  when  would 
she  so  much  go  beyond  herself  as  to  accept  him  at  the  quick 
of  death? 

She  now  became  quite  happy.  The  motor-car  ran  on,  the 
afternoon  was  soft  and  dim.  She  talked  with  lively  interest, 
analysing  people  and  their  motives — Gudrun,  Gerald.  He 
answered  vaguely.  He  was  not  very  much  interested  any 
more  in  personalities  and  in  people — people  were  all  different, 
but  they  were  all  enclosed  in  a  definite  limitation  he  said; 
there  were  only  about  two  great  ideas,  two  great  streams  of 
activity,  with  various  forms  of  reaction  therefrom.  The  reac- 
tions were  all  varied  in  various  people,  but  they  followed  a  few 
great  laws,  and  intrinsically  there  was  no  difference.  They 
acted  and  reacted  involuntarily  according  to  a  few  great  laws, 
and  once  the  laws,  the  great  principles,  were  known,  people 
were  no  longer  mystically  interesting.  They  were  all  essen- 
tially alike,  the  differences  were  only  variations  on  a  theme. 
None  of  them  transcended  the  given  terms. 

Ursula  did  not  agree — people  were  still  an  adventure  to 
her — but — perhaps  not  as  much  as  she  tried  to  persuade  her- 
self. Perhaps  there  was  something  mechanical,  now,  in  her 
interest.  Perhaps  also  her  interest  was  destructive,  her 
analysing  was  a  real  tearing  to  pieces.  There  was  an  under- 
space  in  her  where  she  did  not  care  for  people  and  their  idio- 
syncrasies, even  to  destroy  them.  She  seemed  to  touch  for 
a  moment  this  undersilence  in  herself,  she  became  still,  and 
she  turned  for  a  moment  purely  to  Birkin. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  339 

"Won't  it  be  lovely  to  go  home  in  the  dark?"  she  said.  "We 
might  have  tea  rather  late — shall  we? — and  have  high  tea? 
Wouldn't  that  be  rather  nice?" 

"I  promised  to  be  at  Shortlands  for  dinner,"  he  said. 

"But — it  doesn't  matter — you  can  go  to-morrow." 

"Hermione  is  there,"  he  said,  in  rather  an  uneasy  voice. 
"She  is  going  away  in  two  days.  I  suppose  I  ought  to  say 
good-bye  to  her.     I  shall  never  see  her  again." 

Ursula  drew  away,  closed  in  a  violent  silence.  He  knitted 
his  brows,  and  his  eyes  began  to  sparkle  again  in  anger. 

"You  don't  mind,  do  you?"  he  asked  irritably. 

"No,  I  don't  care.  Why  should  I?  Why  should  I  mind?" 
Her  tone  was  jeering  and  offensive. 

"That's  what  I  ask  myself,"  he  said;  "why  should  you 
mind!  But  you  seem  to."  His  brows  were  tense  with  vio- 
lent irritation. 

"I  assure  you  I  don't,  I  don't  mind  in  the  least.  Go  where 
you  belong — it's  what  I  want  you  to  do." 

"Ah,  you  fool!"  he  cried,  "with  your  'go  where  you  belong.' 
It's  finished  between  Hermione  and  me.  She  means  much 
more  to  you,  if  it  comes  to  that,  than  she  does  to  me.  For 
you  can  only  revolt  in  pure  reaction  from  her — and  to  be  her 
opposite  is  to  be  her  counterpart." 

"Ah,  opposite!"  cried  Ursula.  "I  know  your  dodges.  I 
am  not  taken  in  by  your  word-twisting.  You  belong  to  Her- 
mione and  her  dead  show.  Well,  if  you  do,  you  do.  I  don't 
blame  you.     But  then,  you've  nothing  to  do  with  me." 

In  his  inBamed,  overwrought  exasperation,  he  stopped  the 
car,  and  they  sat  there,  in  the  middle  of  the  country  lane,  to 
have  it  out.  It  was  a  crisis  of  war  between  them,  so  they 
did  not  see  the  ridiculousness  of  their  situation. 

"If  you  weren't  a  fool,  if  only  you  weren't  a  fool,"  he  cried 
in  bitter  despair,  "you'd  see  that  one  could  be  decent,  even 
when  one  has  been  wrong.  I  was  wrong  to  go  on  all  those 
years  with  Hermione — it  was  a  deathly  process.  But  after 
all,  one  can  have  a  little  human  decency.  But  no,  you  would 
tear  my  soul  out  with  your  jealousy  at  the  very  mention  of 
Hermione's  name." 

"I  jealous!      / — jealous!      You  are  mistaken  if  you  think 


340  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

that.  I'm  not  jealous  in  the  least  of  Hermione;  she  is  noth- 
ing to  me,  not  thai!"  And  Ursula  snapped  her  fingers.  "No, 
it's  you  who  are  a  liar.  It's  you  who  must  return,  like  a  dog 
to  his  vomit.  It  is  what  Hermione  stands  for  that  I  hate. 
I  hate  it.  It  is  lies,  it  is  false,  it  is  death.  But  you  want  it, 
you  can't  help  it,  you  can't  help  yourself.  You  belong  to 
that  old,  deathly  way  of  living;  then  go  back  to  it.  But 
don't  come  to  me,  for  I've  nothing  to  do  with  it." 

And  in  the  stress  of  her  violent  emotion,  she  got  down 
from  the  car  and  went  to  the  hedgerow,  picking  unconsciously 
some  flesh-pink  spindleberries,  some  of  which  were  burst, 
showing  their  orange  seeds. 

"Ah,  you  are  a  fool,"  he  cried,  bitterly,  with  some  con- 
tempt. 

"Yes,  I  am.  I  am  a  fool.  And  thank  God  for  it.  I'm 
too  big  a  fool  to  swallow  your  cleverness.  God  be  praised. 
You  go  to  your  women — go  to  them — they  are  your  sort; 
you've  always  had  a  string  of  them  trailing  after  you — and 
you  always  will.  Go  to  your  spiritual  brides — but  don't 
come  to  me  as  well,  because  I'm  not  having  any,  thank  you. 
You're  not  satisfied,  are  you?  Your  spiritual  brides  can't 
give  you  what  you  want,  they  aren't  common  and  fleshy 
enough  for  you,  aren't  they?  So  you  come  to  me,  and  keep 
them  in  the  background!  You  will  marry  me  for  daily  use. 
But  you'll  keep  yourself  well  provided  with  spiritual  brides  in 
the  background.  I  know  your  dirty  little  game."  Suddenly 
a  flame  ran  over  her,  and  she  stamped  her  foot  madly  on  the 
road,  and  he  winced,  afraid  that  she  would  strike  him.  "And 
I,  I'm  not  spiritual  enough,  I'm  not  as  spiritual  as  that  Her- 
mione— !"  Her  brows  knitted,  her  eyes  blazed  like  a  tiger's. 
"Then  go  to  her,  that's  all  I  say,  go  to  her,  go.  Ha,  she  spiri- 
tual— spiritual,  she!  A  dirty  materialist  as  she  is.  She  spiri- 
tual? What  does  she  care  for,  what  is  her  spirituality?  What 
is  it?"  Her  fury  seemed  to  blaze  out  and  burn  his  face.  He 
shrank  a  little.  "I  tell  you  it's  dirt,  dirt,  and  nothing  but  dirt. 
And  it's  dirt  you  want,  you  crave  for  it.  Spiritual!  Is  that 
spiritual,  her  bullying,  her  conceit,  her  sordid  materialism? 
She's  a  fishwife,  a  fishwife,  she  is  such  a  materialist.  And  all 
so  sordid.     What  does  she  work  out  to,  in  the  end,  with  all 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  341 

her  social  passion,  as  you  call  it.  Social  passion — what  social 
passion  has  she?  Show  it  me!  Where  is  it?  She  wants 
petty,  immediate  power,  she  wants  the  illusion  that  she  is  a 
great  woman,  that  is  all.  In  her  soul  she's  a  devilish  unbe- 
liever, common  as  dirt.  That's  what  she  is  at  the  bottom. 
And  all  the  rest  is  pretence — but  you  love  it.  You  love  the 
sham  spirituality;  it's  your  food.  And  why?  Because  of 
the  dirt  underneath.  Do  you  think  I  don't  know  the  foul- 
ness of  your  sex  life — and  her's?  I  do.  And  it's  that  foul- 
ness you  want,  you  liar.  Then  have  it,  have  it.  You're 
such  a  liar." 

She  turned  away,  spasmodically  tearing  the  twigs  of  spin- 
dleberry  from  the  hedge,  and  fastening  them,  with  vibrating 
fingers,  in  the  bosom  of  her  coat. 

He  stood  watching  in  silence.  A  wonderful  tenderness 
burned  in  him,  at  the  sight  of  her  quivering,  so  sensitive  fin- 
gers. And  at  the  same  time  he  was  full  of  rage  and  callous- 
ness. 

"This  is  a  degrading  exhibition,"  he  said,  coolly. 

"Yes,  degrading  indeed,"  she  said.  "But  more  to  me  than 
to  you." 

"Since  you  choose  to  degrade  yourself,"  he  said.  Again 
the  flash  came  over  her  face,  the  yellow  lights  concentrated  in 
her  eyes. 

"You!"  she  cried.  "You!  You  truth-lover!  You  purity- 
monger!  It  stinks,  your  truth  and  your  purity.  It  stinks  of 
the  offal  you  feed  on,  you  scavenger  dog,  you  eater  of  corpses. 
You  are  foul,  foul — and  you  must  know  it.  Your  purity, 
your  candor,  your  goodness — yes,  thank  you,  we've  had  some. 
What  you  are  is  a  foul,  deathly  thing,  obscene,  that's  what 
you  are,  obscene  and  perverse.  You,  and  love!  You  may 
well  say,  you  don't  want  love.  No,  you  want  yourself,  and 
dirt,  and  death — that's  what  you  want.  You  are  so  perverse, 
so  death-eating.     And  then — " 

"There's  a  bicycle  coming,"  he  said,  writhing  under  her 
loud  denunciation. 

She  glanced  down  the  road. 

"I  don't  care,"  she  cried. 

Nevertheless  she  was  silent.      The  cyclist,  having  heard 


342  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

the  voices  raised  in  altercation,  glanced  curiously  at  the  man, 
and  the  woman,  and  at  the  standing  motor-car  as  he  passed. 

" — Afternoon,"  he  said,  cheerfully. 

"Good-afternoon,"  replied  Birkin,  coldly. 

They  were  silent  as  the  man  passed  into  the  distance. 

A  clearer  look  had  come  over  Birkin's  face.  He  knew  she 
was  in  the  main,  right.  He  knew  he  was  perverse,  so  spiri- 
tual on  the  one  hand,  and  in  some  strange  way,  degraded,  on 
the  other.  But  was  she  herself  any  better?  Was  anybody 
any  better? 

"It  may  all  be  true,  lies  and  stink  and  all,"  he  said.  "But 
Hermione's  spiritual  intimacy  is  no  rottener  than  your  emo- 
tional-jealous intimacy.  One  can  preserve  the  decencies,  even 
to  one's  enemies :  for  one's  own  sake.  Hermione  is  my  enemy 
— to  her  last  breath!  That's  why  I  must  bow  her  off  the 
field." 

"You!  You  and  your  enemies  and  your  bows!  A  pretty 
picture  you  make  of  yourself.  But  it  takes  nobody  in  but 
yourself.  I  jealous!  I!  What  I  say,"  her  voice  sprang  into 
flame,  "I  say  because  it  is  true,  do  you  see,  because  you  are 
you,  a  foul  and  false  liar,  a  whited  sepulchre.  That's  why  I 
say  it.     And  you  hear  it." 

"And  be  grateful,"  he  added,  with  a  satirical  grimace. 

"Yes,"  she  cried,  "and  if  you  have  a  spark  of  decency  in 
you,  be  grateful." 

"Not  having  a  spark  of  decency,  however — "  he  retorted. 

"No,"  she  cried,  "you  haven't  a  spark.  And  so  you  can 
go  your  way,  and  I'll  go  mine.  It's  no  good,  not  the  slightest. 
So  you  can  leave  me  now,  I  don't  want  to  go  any  further  with 
you — leave  me — " 

"You  don't  even  know  where  you  are,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  don't  bother,  I  assure  you  I  shall  be  all  right.  I've 
got  ten  shillings  in  my  purse,  and  that  will  take  me  back  from 
anywhere  you  have  brought  me  to."  She  hesitated.  The 
rings  were  still  on  her  fingers,  two  on  her  little  finger,  one  on 
her  ring  finger.     Still  she  hesitated. 

"Very  good,"  he  said.  "The  only  hopeless  thing  is  a 
fool." 

"You  are  quite  right,"  she  said. 


WOMEN  m  LOVE  S43 

Still  she  hesitated.  Then  an  ugly,  malevolent  look  came 
over  her  face,  she  pulled  the  rings  from  her  fingers,  and  tossed 
them  at  him.  One  touched  his  face,  the  others  hit  his  coat, 
and  they  scattered  into  the  mud. 

"And  take  your  rings,"  she  said,  "and  go  and  buy  your- 
self a  female  elsewhere — there  are  plenty  to  be  had,  who  will 
be  quite  glad  to  share  of  your  spiritual  mess, — or  to  have  your 
physical  mess,  and  leave  your  spiritual  mess  to  Hermione." 

With  which  she  walked  away,  desultorily,  up  the  road. 
He  stood  motionless,  watching  her  sullen,  rather  ugly  walk. 
She  was  sullenly  picking  and  pulling  at  the  twigs  of  the  hedge 
as  she  passed.  She  grew  smaller,  she  seemed  to  pass  out  of 
his  sight.  A  darkness  came  over  his  mind.  Only  a  small, 
mechanical  speck  of  consciousness  hovered  near  him. 

He  felt  tired  and  weak.  Yet  also  he  was  relieved.  He 
gave  up  his  old  position.  He  went  and  sat  on  the  bank.  No 
doubt  Ursula  was  right.  It  was  true,  really,  what  she  said. 
He  knew  that  his  spirituality  was  concomitant  of  a  process  of 
depravity,  a  sort  of  pleasure  in  self-destruction.  There  really 
vxu  a  certain  stimulant  in  self-destruction,  for  him — especially 
when  it  was  translated  spiritually.  But  then  he  knew  it — he 
knew  it,  and  had  done.  And  was  not  Ursula's  way  of  emo- 
tional intimacy,  emotional  and  physical,  was  it  not  just  as 
dangerous  as  Hermione's  abstract  spiritual  intimacy?  Fusion, 
fusion,  this  horrible  fusion  of  two  beings,  which  every  woman 
and  most  men  insisted  on,  was  it  not  nauseous  and  horrible 
anyhow,  whether  it  was  a  fusion  of  the  spirit  or  of  the  emo- 
tional body?  Hermione  saw  herself  as  the  perfect  Idea,  to 
which  all  men  must  come;  and  Ursula  was  the  perfect  Womb, 
the  bath  of  birth,  to  which  all  men  must  come!  And  both 
were  horrible.  Why  could  they  not  remain  individuals, 
limited  by  their  own  limits?  Why  this  dreadful  all-compre- 
hensiveness, this  hateful  tyranny?  Why  not  leave  the  other 
being  free,  why  try  to  absorb,  or  melt,  or  merge?  One  might 
abandon  oneself  utterly  to  the  moments,  but  not  to  any  other 
being. 

He  could  not  bear  to  see  the  rings  lying  in  the  pale  mud 
of  the  road.  He  picked  them  up,  and  wiped  them  uncon- 
sciously on  his  hands.      They  were  the  little  tokens  of  the 


344  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

reality  of  beauty,  the  reality  of  happiness  in  warm  creation. 
But  he  had  made  his  hands  all  dirty  and  gritty. 

There  was  a  darkness  over  his  mind.  The  terrible  knot 
of  consciousness  that  had  persisted  there  like  an  obsession  was 
broken,  gone,  his  life  was  dissolved  in  darkness  over  his  limbs 
and  his  body.  But  there  was  a  point  of  anxiety  in  his  heart 
now.  He  wanted  her  to  come  back.  He  breathed  lightly  and 
regularly  like  an  infant,  that  breathes  innocently,  beyond  the 
touch  of  responsibility. 

She  was  coming  back.  He  saw  her  drifting  desultorily 
under  the  high  hedge,  advancing  towards  him  slowly.  He 
did  not  move,  he  did  not  look  again.  He  was  as  if  asleep,  at 
peace,  slumbering  and  utterly  relaxed. 

She  came  up  and  stood  before  him,  hanging  her  head. 

"See  what  a  flower  I  found  you,"  she  said,  wistfully  hold- 
ing a  piece  of  purple-red  bell-heather  under  his  face.  He  saw 
the  clump  of  coloured  bells,  and  the  tree-like,  tiny  branch; 
also  her  hands,  with  their  over-fine,  over-sensitive  skin. 

"Pretty!"  he  said,  looking  up  at  her  with  a  smile,  taking 
the  flower.  Everything  had  become  simple  again,  quite  sim- 
ple, the  complexity  gone  into  nowhere.  But  he  badly  wanted 
to  cry;   except  that  he  was  weary  and  bored  by  emotion. 

Then  a  hot  passion  of  tenderness  for  her  filled  his  heart. 
He  stood  up  and  looked  into  her  face.  It  was  new  and  oh, 
so  delicate  in  its  luminous  wonder  and  fear.  He  put  his 
arms  round  her,  and  she  hid  her  face  on  his  shoulder. 

It  was  peace,  just  simple  peace,  as  he  stood  folding  her 
quietly  there  on  the  open  lane.  It  was  peace  at  last.  The 
old,  detestable  world  of  tension  had  passed  away  at  last,  his 
soul  was  strong  and  at  ease. 

She  looked  up  at  him.  The  wonderful  yellow  light  in  her 
eyes  now  was  soft  and  yielded,  they  were  at  peace  with  each 
other.  He  kissed  her,  softly,  many,  many  times.  A  laugh 
came  into  her  eyes. 

"Did  I  abuse  you?"  she  asked. 

He  smiled,  too,  and  took  her  hand,  that  was  so  soft  and 
given. 

"Never  mind,"  he  said,  "it  is  all  for  the  good."  He 
kissed  her  again,  softly,  many  times. 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  845 

"Isn't  it?"  she  said. 

"Certainly,"  he  replied.  "Wait!  I  shall  have  my  own 
back." 

She  laughed  suddenly,  with  a  wild  catch  in  her  voice,  and 
flung  her  arms  around  him. 

"You  are  mine,  my  love,  aren't  you?"  she  cried,  straining 
him  close. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  softly. 

His  voice  was  so  soft  and  final,  she  went  very  still,  as  if 
under  a  fate  which  had  taken  her.  Yes,  she  acquiesced — but 
it  was  accomplished  without  her  acquiescence.  He  was  kiss- 
ing her  quietly,  repeatedly,  with  a  soft,  still  happiness,  that 
almost  made  her  heart  stop  beating. 

"My  love!"  she  cried,  lifting  her  face  and  looking  with 
frightened,  gentle  wonder  of  bliss.  Was  it  all  real?  But  his 
eyes  were  beautiful  and  soft  and  immune  from  stress  or  ex- 
citement, beautiful  and  smiling  lightly  to  her,  smiling  with 
her.  She  hid  her  face  on  his  shoulder,  hiding  before  him, 
because  he  could  see  her  so  completely.  She  knew  he  loved 
her,  and  she  was  afraid,  she  was  in  a  strange  element,  a  new 
heaven  round  about  her.  She  wished  he  were  passionate, 
because  in  passion  she  was  at  home.  But  this  was  so  still  and 
frail,  as  space  is  more  frightening  than  force. 

Again,  quickly,  she  lifted  her  head 

"Do  you  love  me?"  she  said,  quickly,  impulsively. 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  not  heeding  her  motion,  only  her  stillness. 

She  knew  it  was  true.     She  broke  away. 

"So  you  ought,"  she  said,  turning  round  to  look  at  the 
road.     "Did  you  find  the  rings?" 

"Yes." 

"Where  are  they?" 

"In  my  pocket." 

She  put  her  hand  into  his  pocket  and  took  them  out. 

She  was  restless. 

"Shall  we  go?"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  he  answered.  And  they  mounted  to  the  car  once 
more,  and  left  behind  them  this  memorable  battle-field. 

They  drifted  through  the  wild,  late  afternoon,  in  a  beauti- 
ful motion  that  was  smiling  and  transcendent.     His  mind  was 


346  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

sweetly  at  ease,  the  life  flowed  through  him  as  from  some  new 
fountain,  he  was  as  if  born  out  of  the  cramp  of  a  womb. 

"Are  you  happy?"  she  asked  him,  in  her  strange,  delighted 
way. 

"Yes,"  he  said. 

"So  am  I,"  she  cried  in  sudden  ecstacy,  putting  her  arm 
round  him  and  clutching  him  violently  against  her,  as  he 
steered  the  motor-car. 

"Don't  drive  much  more,"  she  said.  "I  don't  want  you 
to  be  always  doing  something." 

"No,"  he  said.  "We'll  finish  this  little  trip,  and  then 
we'll  be  free." 

"We  will,  my  love,  we  will,"  she  cried  in  delight,  kissing 
him  as  he  turned  to  her. 

He  drove  on  in  a  strange  new  wakefulness,  the  tension  of 
his  consciousness  broken.  He  seemed  to  be  conscious  all 
over,  all  his  body  awake  with  a  simple,  glimmering  awareness, 
as  if  he  had  just  come  awake,  like  a  thing  that  is  born,  like 
a  bird  when  it  comes  out  of  an  egg,  into  a  new  universe. 

They  dropped  down  a  long  hill  in  the  dusk,  and  suddenly 
Ursula  recognized  on  her  right  hand,  below  in  the  hollow,  the 
form  of  Southwell  Minster. 

"Are  we  here?"  she  cried  with  pleasure. 

The  rigid,  sombre,  ugly  cathedral  was  settling  under  the 
gloom  of  the  coming  night,  as  they  entered  the  narrow  town, 
the  golden  lights  showed  like  slabs  of  revelation,  in  the  shop 
windows. 

"Father  came  here  with  mother,"  she  said,  "when  they 
first  knew  each  other.  He  loves  it — he  loves  the  Minster. 
Do  you?" 

"Yes.  It  looks  like  quartz  crystals  sticking  up  out  of  the 
dark  hollow.     We'll  have  our  high  tea  at  the  Saracen's  Head." 

As  they  descended,  they  heard  the  Minster  bells  playing 
a  hymn,  when  the  hour  had  struck  six. 

"Glory  to  thee  my  God  this  night 
For  all  the  blessings  of  the  light — " 

So,  to  Ursula's  ear,  the  tune  fell  out,  drop  by  drop,  from  the 
unseen  sky  on  to  the  dusky  town.     It  was  like  dim,  bygone 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  347 

centuries  sounding.  It  was  all  so  far  off.  She  stood  in  the 
old  yard  of  the  inn,  smelling  of  straw  and  stables  and  petrol. 
Above,  she  could  see  the  first  stars.  What  was  it  all?  This 
was  no  actual  world,  it  was  the  dream-world  of  one's  child- 
hood— a  great  circumscribed  reminiscence.  The  world  had 
become  unreal.  She  herself  was  a  strange,  transcendent 
reality. 

They  sat  together  in  a  little  parlour  by  the  fire. 

"Is  it  true?"  she  said,  wondering. 

"What?" 

"Everything — is  everything  true?" 

"The  best  is  true,"  he  said,  grimacing  at  her. 

"Is  it?"  she  replied,  laughing,  but  unassured. 

She  looked  at  him.  He  seemed  still  so  separate.  New 
eyes  were  opened  in  her  soul.  She  saw  a  strange  creature 
from  another  world,  in  him.  It  was  as  if  she  were  enchanted, 
and  everything  were  metamorphosed.  She  recalled  again  the 
old  magic  of  the  Book  of  Genesis,  where  the  sons  of  God  saw 
the  daughters  of  men,  that  they  were  fair.  And  he  was  one 
of  these,  one  of  these  strange  creatures  from  the  beyond, 
looking  down  at  her,  and  seeing  she  was  fair. 

He  stood  on  the  hearth-rug  looking  at  her,  at  her  face 
that  was  upturned  exactly  like  a  flower,  a  fresh,  luminous 
flower,  glinting  faintly  golden  with  the  dew  of  the  first  light. 
And  he  was  smiling  faintly  as  if  there  were  no  speech  in  the 
world,  save  the  silent  delight  of  flowers  in  each  other.  Smil- 
ingly they  delighted  in  each  other's  presence,  pure  presence, 
not  to  be  thought  of,  even  known.  But  his  eyes  had  a  faintly 
ironical  contraction. 

And  she  was  drawn  to  him  strangely,  as  in  a  spell.  Kneel- 
ing on  the  hearth-rug  before  him,  she  put  her  arms  round  his 
loins,  and  put  her  face  against  his  thighs.  Riches!  Riches! 
She  was  overwhelmed  with  a  sense  of  a  heavenful  of  riches. 

"We  love  each  other,"  she  said  in  delight. 

"More  than  that,"  he  answered,  looking  down  at  her  with 
his  glimmering,  easy  face. 

Unconsciously,  with  her  sensitive  finger-tips,  she  was  trac- 
ing the  back  of  his  thighs,  following  some  mysterious  life-flow 
there.     She  had  discovered  something,  something  more  than 


348  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

wonderful,  more  wonderful  than  life  itself.  It  was  the 
strange  mystery  of  his  life-motion,  there,  at  the  back  of  the 
thighs,  down  the  flanks.  It  was  a  strange  reality  of  his  being, 
the  very  stuff  of  being,  there  in  the  straight  downflow  of  the 
thighs.  It  was  here  she  discovered  him  one  of  the  sons  of 
God  such  as  were  in  the  beginning  of  the  world,  not  a  man, 
something  other,  something  more. 

This  was  release  at  last.  She  had  had  lovers,  she  had 
known  passion.  But  this  was  neither  love  nor  passion.  It 
was  the  daughters  of  men  coming  back  to  the  sons  of  God, 
the  strange  inhuman  sons  of  God  who  are  in  the  beginning. 

Her  face  was  now  one  dazzle  of  released,  golden  light,  as 
she  looked  up  at  him,  and  laid  her  hands  full  on  his  thighs, 
behind,  as  he  stood  before  her.  He  looked  down  at  her  with 
a  rich  bright  brow  like  a  diadem  above  his  eyes.  She  was 
beautiful  as  a  new  marvellous  flower  opened  at  his  knees,  a 
paradisal  flower  she  was,  beyond  womanhood,  such  a  flower 
of  luminousness.  Yet  something  was  tight  and  unfree  in 
him.  He  did  not  like  this  crouching,  this  radiance — not 
altogether. 

It  was  all  achieved,  for  her.  She  had  found  one  of  the 
sons  of  God  from  the  Beginning,  and  he  had  found  one  of  the 
first  most  luminous  daughters  of  men. 

She  traced  with  her  hands  the  line  of  his  loins  and  thighs, 
at  the  back,  and  a  living  fire  ran  through  her,  from  him, 
darkly.  It  was  a  dark  flood  of  electric  passion  she  released 
from  him,  drew  into  herself.  She  had  established  a  rich 
new  circuit,  a  new  current  of  passional  electric  energy,  between 
the  two  of  them,  released  from  the  darkest  poles  of  the  body 
and  established  in  perfect  circuit.  It  was  a  dark  fire  of  elec- 
tricity that  rushed  from  him  to  her,  and  flooded  them  both 
with  rich  peace,  satisfaction. 

"My  love,"  she  cried,  lifting  her  face  to  him,  her  eyes,  her 
mouth  open  in  transport. 

"My  love,"  he  answered,  bending  and  kissing  her,  always 
kissing  her. 

She  closed  her  hands  over  the  full,  rounded  body  of  his 
loins,  as  he  stooped  over  her,  she  seemed  to  touch  the  quick 
of  the  mystery  of  darkness  that  was  bodily  him.     She  seemed 


WOMEN  EST  LOVE  349 

to  faint  beneath,  and  he  seemed  to  faint,  stooping  over  her. 
It  was  a  perfect  passing  away  for  both  of  them,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  most  intolerable  accession  into  being,  the  mar- 
vellous fulness  of  immediate  gratification,  overwhelming,  out- 
flooding  from  the  source  of  the  deepest  life-force,  the  darkest, 
deepest,  strangest  life-source  of  the  human  body,  at  the  back 
and  base  of  the  loins. 

After  a  lapse  of  stillness,  after  the  rivers  of  strange  dark 
fluid  richness  had  passed  over  her,  flooding,  carrying  away  her 
mind  and  flooding  down  her  spine  and  down  her  knees,  past 
her  feet,  a  strange  flood,  sweeping  away  everything  and  leav- 
ing her  an  essential  new  being,  she  was  left  quite  free,  she  was 
free  in  complete  ease,  her  complete  self.  So  she  rose,  stilly 
and  blithe,  smiling  at  him.  He  stood  before  her,  glimmering, 
so  awfully  real,  that  her  heart  almost  stopped  beating.  He 
stood  there  in  his  strange,  whole  body,  that  had  its  marvellous 
fountains,  like  the  bodies  of  the  sons  of  God  who  were  in  the 
beginning.  There  were  strange  fountains  of  his  body,  more 
mysterious  and  potent  than  any  she  had  imagined  or  known, 
more  satisfying,  ah,  finally,  mystically -physically  satisfying. 
She  had  thought  there  was  no  source  deeper  than  the  phallic 
source.  And  now,  behold,  from  the  smitten  rock  of  the  man's 
body,  from  the  strange  marvellous  flanks  and  thighs,  deeper, 
further  in  mystery  than  the  phallic  source,  came  the  floods 
of  ineffable  darkness  and  ineffable  riches. 

They  were  glad,  and  they  could  forget  perfectly.  They 
laughed,  and  went  to  the  meal  provided.  There  was  a  veni- 
son pasty,  of  all  things,  a  large  broad-faced  cut  ham,  eggs 
and  cresses  and  red  beet-root,  and  medlars  and  apple-tart, 
and  tea. 

"What  good  things!"  she  cried  with  pleasure.  "How  noble 
it  looks!     Shall  I  pour  out  the  tea?" 

She  was  usually  nervous  and  uncertain  at  performing  these 
public  duties,  such  as  giving  tea.  But  to-day  she  forgot,  she 
was  at  ease,  entirely  forgetting  to  have  misgivings.  The  tea- 
pot poured  beautifully  from  a  proud  slender  spout.  Her  eyes 
were  warm  with  smiles  as  she  gave  him  his  tea.  She  had 
learned  at  last  to  be  still  and  perfect. 

"Everything  is  ours,"  she  said  to  him. 


350  WOMEN  LN  LOVE 

"Everything,"  he  answered. 

She  gave  a  queer  little  crowing  sound  of  triumph. 

"I'm  so  glad!"  she  cried,  with  unspeakable  relief. 

"So  am  I,"  he  said.  "But  I'm  thinking  we'd  better  get 
out  of  our  responsibilities  as  quick  as  we  can." 

"What  responsibilities?"  she  asked,  wondering. 

"We  must  drop  our  jobs,  like  a  shot." 

A  new  understanding  dawned  into  her  face. 

"Of  course,"  she  said,  "there's  that." 

"We  must  get  out,"  he  said.  "There's  nothing  for  it  but 
to  get  out,  quick." 

She  looked  at  him  doubtfully  across  the  table. 

"But  where?"  she  said. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said.  "We'll  just  wander  about  for 
a  bit." 

Again  she  looked  at  him  quizzically. 

"I  should  be  perfectly  happy  at  the  Mill,"  she  said. 

"It's  very  near  the  old  thing,"  he  said.  "Let  us  wander 
a  bit." 

His  voice  could  be  so  soft  and  happy-go-lucky,  it  went 
through  her  veins  like  an  exhilaration.  Nevertheless  she 
dreamed  of  a  valley,  and  wild  gardens,  and  peace.  She  had 
a  desire  too  for  splendour — an  aristocratic  extravagant  splen- 
dour. Wandering  seemed  to  her  like  restlessness,  dissatis- 
faction. 

"Where  will  you  wander  to?"  she  asked. 

"I  don't  know.  I  feel  as  if  I  would  just  meet  you  and 
we'd  set  off — just  towards  the  distance." 

"But  where  can  one  go?"  she  asked  anxiously.  "After 
all,  there  is  only  the  world,  and  none  of  it  is  very  distant." 

"Still,"  he  said,  "I  should  like  to  go  with  you — nowhere. 
It  would  be  rather  wandering  just  to  nowhere.  That's  the 
place  to  get  to — nowhere.  One  wants  to  wander  away  from 
the  world's  somewheres,  into  our  own  nowhere." 

Still  she  meditated. 

"You  see,  my  love,"  she  said,  "I'm  so  afraid  that  while 
we  are  only  people,  we've  got  to  take  the  world  that's  given — 
because  there  isn't  any  other." 

"Yes  there  is,"  he  said.      "There's  somewhere  where  we 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  851 

can  be  free — somewhere  where  one  needn't  wear  much  clothes 
— none  even — where  one  meets  a  few  people  who  have  gone 
through  enough,  and  can  take  things  for  granted — where  you 
be  yourself,  without  bothering.  There  is  somewhere — there 
are  one  or  two  people — " 

"But  where?"  she  sighed. 

"Somewhere — anywhere.  I/et's  wander  off.  That's  the 
thing  to  do — let's  wander  off." 

"Yes,"  she  said,  thrilled  at  the  thought  of  travel.  But  to 
her  it  was  only  travel. 

"To  be  free,"  he  said.  "To  be  free,  in  a  free  place,  with 
a  few  other  people!" 

"Yes,"  she  said  wistfully.  Those  "few  other  people"  de- 
pressed her. 

"It  isn't  really  a  locality,  though,"  he  said.  "It's  a  per- 
fected relation  between  you  and  me,  and  others — the  perfect 
relation — so  that  we  are  free  together." 

"It  is,  my  love,  isn't  it?"  she  said.  "It's  you  and  me. 
It's  you  and  me,  isn't  it?"  She  stretched  out  her  arms  to 
him.  He  went  across  and  stooped  to  kiss  her  face.  Her 
arms  closed  round  him  again,  her  hands  spread  upon  his 
shoulders,  moving  slowly  there,  moving  slowly  on  his  back, 
down  his  back  slowly,  with  a  strange  recurrent,  rhythmic 
motion,  yet  moving  slowly  down,  pressing  mysteriously  over 
his  loins,  over  his  flanks.  The  sense  of  the  awfulness  of 
riches  that  could  never  be  impaired  flooded  her  mind  like  a 
swoon,  a  death  in  most  marvellous  possession,  mystic-sure. 
She  possessed  him  so  utterly  and  intolerably,  that  she  herself 
lapsed  out.  And  yet  she  was  only  sitting  still  in  the  chair, 
with  her  hands  pressed  upon  him,  and  lost. 

Again  he  softly  kissed  her. 

"We  shall  never  go  apart  again,"  he  murmured  quietly. 
And  she  did  not  speak,  but  only  pressed  her  hands  firmer 
down  upon  the  source  of  darkness  in  him. 

They  decided,  when  they  awoke  again  from  the  pure  swoon, 
to  write  their  resignations  from  the  world  of  work  there  and 
then.     She  wanted  this. 

He  rang  the  bell,  and  ordered  note-paper  without  a  printed 
address.     The  waiter  cleared  the  table. 


352  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

"Now  then,"  he  said,  "yours  first.  Put  your  home  ad- 
dress, and  the  date — then  'Director  of  Education,  Town  Hall- — 
Sir — '  Now  then! — I  don't  know  how  one  really  stands. — I 
suppose  one  could  get  out  of  it  in  less  than  a  month. — Any- 
how, 'Sir — I  beg  to  resign  my  post  as  class-mistress  in  the 
Willey  Green  Grammar  School.  I  should  be  very  grateful  if 
you  would  liberate  me  as  soon  as  possible,  without  waiting  for 
the  expiration  of  the  month's  notice.'  That'll  do.  Have  you 
got  it?  Let  me  look.  'Ursula  Brangwen.'  Good!  Now, 
I'll  write  mine.  I  ought  to  give  them  three  months,  but  I  can 
plead  health.     I  can  arrange  it  all  right." 

He  sat  and  wrote  out  his  formal  resignation. 

"Now,"  he  said,  when  the  envelopes  were  sealed  and  ad- 
dressed, "shall  we  post  them  here,  both  together?  I  know 
Jackie  will  say,  'Here's  a  coincidence!'  when  he  receives  them 
in  all  their  identity.     Shall  we  let  him  say  it,  or  not?" 

"I  don't  care,"  she  said. 

"No — ?"  he  said,  pondering. 

"It  doesn't  matter,  does  it?"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  he  replied.  "Their  imaginations  shall  not  work  on 
us.  I'll  post  yours  here,  mine  after.  I  cannot  be  implicated 
in  their  imaginings." 

He  looked  at  her  with  his  strange,  non-human  singleness. 

"Yes,  you  are  right,"  she  said. 

She  lifted  her  face  to  him,  all  shining  and  open.  It  was 
as  if  he  might  enter  straight  into  the  source  of  her  radiance. 
His  face  became  a  little  distracted. 

"Shall  we  go?"  he  said. 

"As  you  like,"  she  replied. 

They  were  soon  out  of  the  little  town,  and  running  through 
the  uneven  lanes  of  the  country.  Ursula  nestled  near  him, 
into  his  constant  warmth,  and  watched  the  pale-lit  revelation 
racing  ahead,  the  visible  night.  Sometimes  it  was  a  wide 
old  road,  with  grass-spaces  on  either  side,  flying  magic  and 
elfin  in  the  greenish  illumination,  sometimes  it  was  trees  loom- 
ing overhead,  sometimes  it  was  bramble  bushes,  sometimes 
the  walls  of  a  crew-yard  and  the  butt  of  a  barn. 

"Are  you  going  to  Shortlands  to  dinner?"  Ursula  asked  him 
suddenly.     He  started. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  853 

"Good  God!"  he  said.  "Shortlands!  Never  again.  Not 
that.     Besides  we  should  be  too  late." 

"Where  are  we  going  then — to  the  Mill?" 

"If  you  like.  Pity  to  go  anywhere  on  this  good  dark 
night.  Pity  to  come  out  of  it,  really.  Pity  we  can't  stop 
in  the  good  darkness.  It  is  better  than  anything  ever  would 
be — this  good  immediate  darkness." 

She  sat  wondering.  The  car  lurched  and  swayed.  She 
knew  there  was  no  leaving  him,  the  darkness  held  them  both 
and  contained  them;  it  was  not  to  be  surpassed.  Besides  she 
had  a  full  mystic  knowledge  of  his  suave  loins  of  darkness, 
dark-clad  and  suave,  and  in  this  knowledge  there  was  some 
of  the  inevitability  and  the  beauty  of  fate,  fate  which  one  asks 
for,  which  one  accepts  in  full. 

He  sat  still  like  an  Egyptian  Pharoah,  driving  the  car. 
He  felt  as  if  he  were  seated  in  immemorial  potency,  like  the 
great  carven  statues  of  real  Egypt,  as  real  and  as  fulfilled 
with  subtle  strength,  as  these  are,  with  a  vague  inscrutable 
smile  on  the  lips.  He  knew  what  it  was  to  have  the  strange 
and  magical  current  of  force  in  his  back  and  loins,  and  down 
his  legs,  force  so  perfect  that  it  stayed  him  immobile,  and  left 
his  face  subtly,  mindlessly  smiling.  He  knew  what  it  was  to 
be  awake  and  potent  in  that  other  basic  mind,  the  deepest 
physical  mind.  And  from  this  source  he  had  a  pure  and 
magic  control,  magical,  mystical,  a  force  in  darkness,  like 
electricity. 

It  was  very  difficult  to  speak,  it  was  so  perfect  to  sit  in 
this  pure  living  silence,  subtle,  full  of  unthinkable  knowledge 
and  unthinkable  force,  upheld  immemorially  in  timeless  force, 
like  the  immobile,  supremely  potent  Egyptians,  seated  forever 
in  their  living,  subtle  silence. 

"We  need  not  go  home,"  he  said.  "This  car  has  seats 
that  let  down  and  make  a  bed,  and  we  can  lift  the  hood." 

She  was  glad  and  frightened.     She  cowered  near  to  him. 

"But  what  about  them  at  home?"  she  said. 

"Send  a  telegram." 

Nothing  more  was  said.  They  ran  on  in  silence.  But 
with  a  sort  of  second  consciousness  he  steered  the  car  towards 
a  destination.     For  he  had  the  free  intelligence  to  direct  his 


354  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

own  ends.  His  arms  and  his  breast  and  his  head  were  rounded 
and  living  like  those  of  the  Greek,  he  had  not  the  unawakened 
straight  arms  of  the  Egyptian,  nor  the  sealed,  slumbering  head. 
A  lambent  intelligence  played  secondarily  above  his  pure 
Egyptian  concentration  in  darkness. 

They  came  to  a  village  that  lined  along  the  road.  The 
car  crept  slowly  along,  until  he  saw  the  post-office.  Then  he 
pulled  up. 

"I  will  send  a  telegram  to  your  father,"  he  said.  "I  will 
merely  say  'Spending  the  night  in  town,'  shall  I?" 

"Yes,"  she  answered.  She  did  not  want  to  be  disturbed 
into  taking  thought. 

She  watched  him  move  into  the  post-office.  It  was  also 
a  shop,  she  saw.  Strange,  he  was.  Even  as  he  went  into  the 
lighted,  public  place,  he  remained  dark  and  magic,  the  living 
silence  seemed  the  body  of  reality  in  him,  subtle,  potent,  in- 
discoverable.  There  he  was!  In  a  strange  uplift  of  elation 
she  saw  him,  the  being  never  to  be  revealed,  awful  in  its  po- 
tency, mystic  and  real.  This  dark,  subtle  reality  of  him, 
never  to  be  translated,  liberated  her  into  perfection,  her  own 
perfected  being.      She,  too,  was  dark  and  fulfilled  in  silence. 

He  came  out,  throwing  some  packages  into  the  car. 

"There  is  some  bread,  and  cheese,  and  raisins,  and  apples, 
and  hard  chocolate,"  he  said,  in  his  voice  that  was  as  if  laugh- 
ing, because  of  the  unblemished  stillness  and  force  which  was 
the  reality  in  him.  She  would  have  to  touch  him.  To 
speak,  to  see,  was  nothing.  It  was  a  travesty  to  look  and  to 
comprehend  the  man  there.  Darkness  and  silence  must  fall 
perfectly  on  her,  then  she  could  know  mystically,  in  unre- 
vealed  touch.  She  must  lightly,  mindlessly  connect  with 
him,  have  the  knowledge  which  is  death  of  knowledge,  the 
reality  of  surety  in  not-knowing. 

Soon  they  had  run  on  again  into  the  darkness.  She  did 
not  ask  where  they  were  going,  she  did  not  care.  She  sat  in 
a  fulness  and  a  pure  potency  that  was  like  apathy,  mindless 
and  immobile.  She  was  next  to  him,  and  hung  in  a  pure  rest, 
as  a  star  is  hung,  balanced  unthinkably.  Still  there  remained 
a  dark  lambency  of  anticipation.  She  would  touch  him. 
With  perfect  fine  finger-tips  of  reality  she  would  touch  the 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  355 

reality  in  him,  the  suave,  pure,  untranslateable  reality  of  his 
loins  of  darkness.  To  touch,  mindlessly  in  darkness,  to  come 
in  pure  touching  upon  the  living  reality  of  him,  his  suave,  per- 
fect loins  and  thighs  of  darkness,  this  was  her  sustaining 
anticipation. 

And  he,  too,  waited  in  the  magical  steadfastness  of  sus- 
pense, for  her  to  take  this  knowledge  of  him  as  he  had  taken 
it  of  her.  He  knew  her  darkly,  with  the  fullness  of  dark 
knowledge.  Now  she  would  know  him,  and  he,  too,  would 
be  liberated.  He  would  be  night-free,  like  an  Egyptian, 
steadfast  in  perfectly  suspended  equilibrium,  pure  mystic 
nodality  of  physical  being.  They  would  give  each  other  this 
star-equilibrium  which  alone  is  freedom. 

She  saw  that  they  were  running  among  trees — great  old 
trees  with  dying  bracken  undergrowth.  The  palish,  gnarled 
trunks  showed  ghostly,  and  like  old  priests  in  the  hovering 
distance,  the  fern  rose  magical  and  mysterious.  It  was  a 
night  all  darkness,  with  low  cloud.  The  motor-car  advanced 
slowly. 

"Where  are  we?"  she  whispered. 

"In  Sherwood  Forest." 

It  was  evident  he  knew  the  place.  He  drove  softly, 
watching.  Then  they  came  to  a  green  road  between  the 
trees.  They  turned  cautiously  round,  and  were  advancing 
between  the  oaks  of  the  forest,  down  a  green  lane.  The  green 
lane  widened  into  a  little  circle  of  grass,  where  there  was  a 
small  trickle  of  water  at  the  bottom  of  a  sloping  bank.  The 
car  stopped. 

"We  will  stay  here,"  he  said,  "and  put  out  the  lights." 

He  extinguished  the  lamps  at  once,  and  it  was  pure  night, 
with  shadows  of  trees  like  realities  of  other,  nightly  being. 
He  threw  a  rug  on  to  the  bracken,  and  they  sat  in  stillness 
and  mindless  silence.  There  were  faint  sounds  from  the 
wood,  but  no  disturbance,  no  possible  disturbance,  the  world 
was  under  a  strange  ban,  a  new  mystery  had  supervened. 
They  threw  off  their  clothes,  and  he  gathered  her  to  him,  and 
found  her,  found  the  pure  lambent  reality  of  her  forever  in- 
visible flesh.  Quenched,  inhuman,  his  fingers  upon  her 
unrevealed  nudity  were  the  fingers  of  silence  upon  silence,  the 


356  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

body  of  mysterious  night  upon  the  body  of  mysterious  night, 
the  night  masculine  and  feminine,  never  to  be  seen  with  the 
eye,  or  known  with  the  mind,  only  known  as  a  palpable  revel- 
ation of  mystic  otherness. 

She  had  her  desire  of  him,  she  touched,  she  received  the 
maximum  of  unspeakable  communication  in  touch,  dark, 
subtle,  positively  silent,  a  magnificent  gift  and  give  again,  a 
perfect  acceptance  and  yielding,  a  mystery,  the  reality  of  that 
which  can  never  be  known,  mystic,  sensual  reality  that  can 
never  be  transmuted  into  mind  content,  but  remains  outside, 
living  body  of  darkness  and  silence  and  subtlety,  the  mystic 
body  of  reality.  She  had  her  desire  fulfilled,  he  had  his  desire 
fulfilled.  For  she  was  to  him  what  he  was  to  her,  the  immem- 
orial magnificence  of  mystic,  palpable,  real  otherness. 

They  slept  the  chilly  night  through  under  the  hood  of  the 
car,  a  night  of  unbroken  sleep.  It  was  already  high  day  when 
he  awoke.  They  looked  at  each  other  and  laughed,  then 
looked  away,  filled  with  darkness  and  secrecy.  Then  they 
kissed  and  remembered  the  magnificence  of  the  night.  It 
was  so  magnificent,  such  an  inheritance  of  a  universe  of  dark 
reality,  that  they  were  afraid  to  seem  to  remember.  They 
hid  away  the  remembrance  and  the  knowledge. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THOMAS  CRICH  died  slowly,  terribly  slowly.  It 
seemed  impossible  to  everybody  that  the  thread  of  life 
could  be  drawn  out  so  thin,  and  yet  not  break.  The 
sick  man  lay  unutterably  weak  and  spent,  kept  alive  by  mor- 
phia and  by  drinks,  which  he  sipped  slowly.  He  was  only 
half  conscious — a  thin  strand  of  consciousness  linking  the 
darkness  of  death  with  the  light  of  day.  Yet  his  will  was 
unbroken,  he  was  integral,  complete.  Only  he  must  have 
perfect  stillness  about  him. 

Any  presence  but  that  of  the  nurses  was  a  strain  and  an 
effort  to  him  now.  Every  morning  Gerald  went  into  the  room, 
hoping  to  find  his  father  passed  away  at  last.  Yet  always  he 
saw  the  same  transparent  face,  the  same  dread  dark  hair  on 
the  waxen  forehead,  and  the  awful,  inchoate  dark  eyes,  which 
seemed  to  be  decomposing  into  formless  darkness,  having 
only  a  tiny  grain  of  vision  within  them. 

And  always,  as  the  dark,  inchoate  eyes  turned  to  him, 
there  passed  through  Gerald's  bowels  a  burning  stroke  of 
revolt,  that  seemed  to  resound  through  his  whole  being, 
threatening  to  break  his  mind  with  its  clangour,  and  making 
him  mad. 

Every  morning,  the  son  stood  there,  erect  and  taut  with 
life,  gleaming  in  his  blondness.  The  gleaming  blondness  of 
his  strange,  imminent  being  put  the  father  into  a  fever  of 
fretful  irritation.  He  could  not  bear  to  meet  the  uncanny, 
downward  look  of  Gerald's  blue  eyes.  But  it  was  only  for 
a  moment.  Each  on  the  brink  of  departure,  the  father  and 
son  looked  at  each  other,  then  parted. 

For  a  long  time  Gerald  preserved  a  perfect  sang  froid,  he 
remained  quite  collected.  But  at  last,  fear  undermined  him. 
He  was  afraid  of  some  horrible  collapse  in  himself.  He  had 
to  stay  and  see  this  thing  through.  Some  perverse  will  made 
him  watch  his  father  drawn  over  the  borders  of  life.  And 
yet,  now,  every  day,  the  great  red-hot  stroke  of  horrified  fear 

857 


358  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

through  the  bowels  of  the  son  struck  a  further  inflammation. 
Gerald  went  about  all  day  with  a  tendency  to  cringe,  as  if 
there  were  the  point  of  a  sword  of  Damocles  pricking  the  nape 
of  his  neck. 

There  was  no  escape — he  was  bound  up  with  his  father, 
he  had  to  see  him  through.  And  the  father's  will  never 
relaxed  or  yielded  to  death.  It  would  have  to  snap  when 
death  at  last  snapped  it, — if  it  did  not  persist  after  a  physical 
death.  In  the  same  way,  the  will  of  the  son  never  yielded. 
He  stood  firm  and  immune,  he  was  outside  this  death  and  this 
dying. 

It  was  a  trial  by  ordeal.  Could  he  stand  and  see  his 
father  slowly  dissolve  and  disappear  in  death,  without 
once  yielding  his  will,  without  once  relenting  before  the  om- 
nipotence of  death.  Like  a  Red  Indian  undergoing  torture. 
Gerald  would  experience  the  whole  process  of  slow  death 
without  wincing  or  flinching.  He  even  triumphed  in  it. 
He  somehow  wanted  this  death,  even  forced  it.  It  was  as 
if  he  himself  were  dealing  the  death,  even  when  he  most 
recoiled  in  horror.  Still,  he  would  deal  it,  he  would  triumph 
through  death. 

But  in  the  stress  of  this  ordeal,  Gerald  too  lost  his  hold 
on  the  outer,  daily  life.  That  which  was  much  to  him,  came 
to  mean  nothing.  Work,  pleasure — it  was  all  left  behind. 
He  went  on  more  or  less  mechanically  with  his  business  but 
this  activity  was  all  extraneous.  The  real  activity  was  this 
ghastly  wrestling  for  death  in  his  own  soul.  And  his  own 
will  should  triumph.  Come  what  might,  he  would  not  bow 
down  or  submit  or  acknowledge  a  master.  He  had  no  master 
in  death. 

But  as  the  fight  went  on,  and  all  that  he  had  been  and 
was  continued  to  be  destroyed,  so  that  life  was  a  hollow  shell 
all  round  him,  roaring  and  clattering  like  the  sound  of  the  sea, 
a  noise  in  which  he  participated  externally,  and  inside  this 
hollow  shell  was  all  the  darkness  and  fearful  space  of  death,  he 
knew  he  would  have  to  find  reinforcements,  otherwise  he  would 
collapse  inwards  upon  the  great  dark  void  which  circled  at 
the  centre  of  his  soul.  His  will  held  his  outer  life,  his  outer 
mind,  his  outer  being  unbroken  and  unchanged.      But  the 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  359 

pressure  was  too  great.  He  would  have  to  find  something 
to  make  good  the  equilibrium.  Something  must  come  with 
him  into  the  hollow  void  of  death  in  his  soul,  fill  it  up,  and  so 
equalise  the  pressure  within  to  the  pressure  without.  For 
day  by  day  he  felt  more  and  more  like  a  bubble  filled  with 
darkness,  round  which  whirled  the  iridescence  of  his  con- 
sciousness, and  upon  which  the  pressure  of  the  outer  world, 
the  outer  life,  roared  vastly. 

In  this  extremity  his  instinct  led  him  to  Gudrun.  He  threw 
away  everything  now — he  only  wanted  the  relation  established 
with  her.  He  would  follow  her  to  the  studio,  to  be  near  her, 
to  talk  to  her.  He  would  stand  about  the  room,  aimlessly 
picking  up  the  implements,  the  lumps  of  clay,  the  little  figures 
she  had  cast — they  were  whimsical  and  grotesque, — looking 
at  them  without  perceiving  them.  And  she  felt  him  follow- 
ing her,  dogging  her  heels  like  a  doom.  She  held  away  from 
him,  and  yet  she  knew  he  drew  always  a  little  nearer,  a  little 
nearer. 

"I  say,"  he  said  to  her  one  evening,  in  an  odd,  unthink- 
ing, uncertain  way,  "won't  you  stay  to  dinner  to-night? 
I  wish  you  would." 

She  started  slightly.  He  spoke  to  her  like  a  man  making 
a  request  of  another  man. 

"They'll  be  expecting  me  at  home,"  she  said. 

"Oh,  they  won't  mind,  will  they?"  he  said.  "I  should  be 
awfully  glad  if  you'd  stay." 

Her  long  silence  gave  consent  at  last. 

"I'll  tell  Thomas,  shall  I?"   he  said. 

"I  must  go  almost  immediately  after  dinner,"  she  said. 

It  was  a  dark,  cold  evening.  There  was  no  fire  in  the 
drawing-room,  they  sat  in  the  library.  He  was  mostly  silent, 
absent,  and  Winifred  talked  little.  But  when  Gerald  did 
rouse  himself,  he  smiled  and  was  pleasant  and  ordinary  with 
her.  Then  there  came  over  him  again  the  long  blanks,  of 
which  he  was  not  aware. 

She  was  very  much  attracted  by  him.  He  looked  so  pre- 
occupied, and  his  strange,  blank  silences,  which  she  could  not 
read,  moved  her  and  made  her  wonder  over  him,  made  her 
feel  reverential  towards  him. 


360  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

But  he  was  very  kind.  He  gave  her  the  best  things 
at  the  table,  he  had  a  bottle  of  slightly  sweet,  delicious 
golden  wine  brought  out  for  dinner,  knowing  she  would 
prefer  it  to  the  burgundy.  She  felt  herself  esteemed,  needed 
almost. 

As  they  took  coffee  in  the  library,  there  was  a  soft,  very  soft 
knocking  at  the  door.  He  started,  and  called  "Come  in." 
The  timbre  of  his  voice,  like  something  vibrating  at  high  pitch, 
unnerved  Gudrun.  A  nurse  in  white  entered,  half  hovering 
in  the  doorway  like  a  shadow.  She  was  very  good-looking, 
but  strangely  enough,  shy  and  self-mistrusting. 

"The  doctor  would  like  to  speak  to  you,  Mr.  Crich,"  she 
said,  in  her  low,  discreet  voice. 

"The  doctor!"   he  said,  starting  up.      "Where  is  he?" 

"He  is  in  the  dining  room." 

"Tell  him  I'm  coming." 

He  drank  up  his  coffee,  and  followed  the  nurse,  who  had 
dissolved  like  a  shadow. 

"Which  nurse  was  that?"   asked  Gudrun. 

"Miss  Inglis — I  like  her  best,"  replied  Winifred. 

After  a  while  Gerald  came  back,  looking  absorbed  by  his 
own  thoughts,  and  having  some  of  that  tension  and  abstrac- 
tion which  is  seen  in  a  slightly  drunken  man.  He  did  not  say 
what  the  doctor  had  wanted  him  for,  but  stood  before  the  fire, 
with  his  hands  behind  his  back,  and  his  face  open  and  as  if 
rapt.  Not  that  he  was  really  thinking — he  was  only  arrested 
in  pure  suspense  inside  himself,  and  thoughts  wafted  through 
his  mind  without  order. 

"I  must  go  now  and  see  Mama,"  said  Winifred,  "and  see 
Dadda  before  he  goes  to  sleep." 

She  bade  them  both  good-night. 

Gudrun  also  rose  to  take  her  leave. 

"You  needn't  go  yet,  need  you?"  said  Gerald,  glancing 
quickly  at  the  clock.  "It  is  early  yet.  I'll  walk  down  with 
you  when  you  go.      Sit  down,  don't  hurry  away." 

Gudrun  sat  down,  as  if,  absent  as  he  was,  his  will  had  power 
over  her.  She  felt  almost  mesmerised.  He  was  strange  to 
her,  something  unknown.  What  was  he  thinking,  what  was 
he  feeling,  as  he  stood  there  so  rapt,  saying  nothing?   He  kept 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  361 

her — she  could  feel  that.  He  would  not  let  her  go.  She 
watched  him  in  humble  submissiveness. 

"Had  the  doctor  anything  new  to  tell  you?"  she  asked, 
softly,  at  length,  with  that  gentle,  timid  sympathy  which 
touched  a  keen  fibre  in  his  heart.  He  lifted  his  eyebrows 
with  a  negligent,  indifferent  expression. 

"No — nothing  new,"  he  replied,  as  if  the  question  were 
quite  casual,  trivial.  "He  says  the  pulse  is  very  weak  in- 
deed, very  intermittent — but  that  doesn't  necessarily  mean 
much,  you  know." 

He  looked  down  at  her.  Her  eyes  were  dark  and  soft  and 
unfolded,  with  a  stricken  look  that  roused  him. 

"No,"  she  murmured  at  length.  "I  don't  understand 
anything  about  these  things." 

"Just  as  well  not,"  he  said.  "I  say,  won't  you  have  a 
cigarette? — do!"  He  quickly  fetched  the  box,  and  held  her 
a  light.      Then  he  stood  before  her  on  the  hearth  again. 

"No,"  he  said,  "we've  never  had  much  illness  in  the  house, 
either — not  till  father."  He  seemed  to  meditate  a  while. 
Then  looking  down  at  her,  with  strangely  communicative 
blue  eyes,  that  filled  her  with  dread,  he  continued:  "It's 
something  you  don't  reckon  with,  you  know,  till  it  is  there. 
And  then  you  realise  that  it  was  there  all  the  time — it  was 
always  there — you  understand  what  I  mean? — the  possi- 
bility of  this  incurable  illness,  this  slow  death." 

He  moved  his  feet  uneasily  on  the  marble  hearth,  and  put 
his  cigarette  to  his  mouth,  looking  up  at  the  ceiling. 

"I  know,"  murmured  Gudrun:   "it  is  dreadful." 

He  smoked  without  knowing.  Then  he  took  the  cigar- 
ette from  his  lips,  bared  his  teeth,  and  putting  the  tip  of  his 
tongue  between  his  teeth  spat  off  a  grain  of  tobacco,  turning 
slightly  aside,  like  a  man  who  is  alone,  or  who  is  lost  in 
thought. 

"I  don't  know  what  the  effect  actually  is,  on  one,"  he  said, 
and  again  he  looked  down  at  her.  Her  eyes  were  dark  and 
stricken  with  knowledge,  looking  into  his.  He  saw  her  sub- 
merged, and  he  turned  aside  his  face.  "But  I  absolutely 
am  not  the  same.  There's  nothing  left,  if  you  understand 
what  I  mean.      You  seem  to  be  clutching  at  the  void — and 


362  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

at  the  same  time  you  are  void  yourself. — And  so  you  don't 
know  what  to  do." 

"No,"  she  murmured.  A  heavy  thrill  ran  down  her  nerves, 
heavy,  almost  pleasure,  almost  pain.  "What  can  be  done?" 
she  added. 

He  turned,  and  flipped  the  ash  from  his  cigarette  on  to 
the  great  marble  hearth-stones,  that  lay  bare  to  the  rim, 
without  fender  or  bar. 

"I  don't  know,  I'm  sure,"  he  replied.  "But  I  do  think 
you've  got  to  find  some  way  of  resolving  the  situation — not 
because  you  want  to,  but  because  you've  got  to,  otherwise 
you're  done.  The  whole  of  everything,  and  yourself  included, 
is  just  on  the  point  of  caving  in,  and  you  are  just  holding  it 
up  with  your  hands. — Well,  it's  a  situation  that  obviously 
can't  continue.  You  can't  stand  holding  the  roof  up  with 
your  hands,  forever.  You  know  that  sooner  or  later  you'll 
have  to  let  go. — Do  you  understand  what  I  mean? — And  so 
something's  got  to  be  done,  or  there's  a  universal  collapse — 
as  far  as  you  yourself  are  concerned." 

He  shifted  slightly  on  the  hearth,  crunching  a  cinder  under 
his  heel.  He  looked  down  at  it.  Gudrun  was  aware  of  the 
beautiful  old  marble  panels  of  the  fireplace,  swelling  softly 
carved,  round  him  and  above  him.  She  felt  as  if  she  were 
caught  at  last  by  fate,  imprisoned  in  some  horrible  and  fatal 
trap. 

"But  what  can  be  done?"  she  murmured  humbly.  "You 
must  use  me  if  I  can  be  of  any  help  at  all — but  how  can  I? 
I  don't  see  how  I  can  help  you." 

He  looked  down  at  her  critically. 

"I  don't  want  you  to  help,"  he  said,  slightly  irritated, 
"because  there's  nothing  to  be  done.  I  only  want  sympathy, 
do  you  see:  I  want  somebody  I  can  talk  to  sympathetically. 
That  eases  the  strain.  And  there  is  nobody  to  talk  to 
sympathetically.  That's  the  curious  thing.  There  is 
nobody.  There's  Rupert  Birkin.  But  then  he  isn't  sympa- 
thetic, he  wants  to  dictate.      And  that  is  no  use  whatsoever." 

She  was  caught  in  a  strange  snare.  She  looked  down 
at  her  hands. 

Then  there  was  the  sound  of  the  door  softly  opening. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  363 

Gerald  started.  He  was  chagrined.  It  was  his  starting  that 
really  startled  Gudrun.  Then  he  went  forward,  with  quick, 
graceful,  intentional  courtesy. 

"Oh,  mother!"  he  said.  "How  nice  of  you  to  come  down. 
How  are  you?" 

The  elderly  woman,  loosely  and  bulkily  wrapped  in  a 
purple  gown,  came  forward  silently,  slightly  hulked,  as  usual. 
Her  son  was  at  her  side.  He  pushed  her  up  a  chair,  saying: 
"You  know  Miss  Brangwen,  don't  you? 

The  mother  glanced  at  Gudrun  indifferently. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  Then  she  turned  her  wonderful,  forget- 
me-not  blue  eyes  up  to  her  son,  as  she  slowly  sat  down  in  the 
chair  he  had  brought  her. 

"I  came  to  ask  you  about  your  father,"  she  said,  in  her 
rapid,  scarcely-audible  voice.  "I  didn't  know  you  had  com- 
pany." 

"No?  Didn't  Winifred  tell  you?  Miss  Brangwen  stayed 
to  dinner,  to  make  us  a  little  more  lively — " 

Mrs.  Crich  turned  slowly  round  to  Gudrun,  and  looked 
at  her,  but  with  unseeing  eyes. 

"I'm  afraid  it  would  be  no  treat  to  her."  Then  she  turned 
again  to  her  son.  "Winifred  tells  me  the  doctor  had  something 
to  say  about  your  father.     What  is  it?" 

"Only  that  the  pulse  is  very  weak — misses  altogether  a 
good  many  times — so  that  he  might  not  last  the  night  out," 
Gerald  replied. 

Mrs.  Crich  sat  perfectly  impassive,  as  if  she  had  not  heard. 
Her  bulk  seemed  hunched  in  the  chair,  her  fair  hair  hung 
slack  over  her  ears.  But  her  skin  was  clear  and  fine,  her  hands, 
as  she  sat  with  them  forgotten  and  folded,  were  quite  beauti- 
ful, full  of  potential  energy.  A  great  mass  of  energy  seemed 
decaying  up  in  that  silent,  hulking  form. 

She  looked  up  at  her  son,  as  he  stood,  keen  and  soldierly, 
near  to  her.  Her  eyes  were  most  wonderfully  blue,  bluer 
than  forget-me-nots.  She  seemed  to  have  a  certain  confi- 
dence in  Gerald,  and  to  feel  a  certain  motherly  mistrust  of  him. 

"How  are  you?"  she  muttered,  in  her  strangely  quiet  voice, 
as  if  nobody  should  hear  but  him.  "You're  not  getting  into  a 
state,  are  you?   You're  not  letting  it  make  you  hysterical?" 


364  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

The  curious  challenge  in  the  last  words  startled  Gudrun. 

"I  don't  think  so,  mother,"  he  answered,  rather  coldly 
cheery.      "Somebody's  got  to  see  it  through,  you  know." 

"Have  they?  Have  they?"  answered  his  mother  rapidly. 
"Why  should  you  take  it  on  yourself?  What  have  you  got 
to  do,  seeing  it  through.  It  will  see  itself  through.  You 
are  not  needed." 

"No,  I  don't  suppose  I  can  do  any  good,"  he  answered. 
"It's  just  how  it  affects  us,  you  see." 

"You  like  to  be  affected — don't  you?  It's  quite  nuts  for 
you?  You  would  have  to  be  important.  You  have  no  need 
to  stop  at  home.      Why  don't  you  go  away!" 

These  sentences,  evidently  the  ripened  grain  of  many 
dark  hours,  took  Gerald  by  surprise. 

"I  don't  think  it's  any  good  going  away  now,  mother,  at 
the  last  minute,"  he  said,  coldly. 

"You  take  care,"  replied  his  mother.  "You  mind  your- 
self— that's  your  business.  You  take  too  much  on  yourself. — 
You  mind  yourself,  or  you'll  find  yourself  in  Queer  Street, 
that's  what  will  happen  to  you.  You're  hysterical,  always 
were." 

"I'm  all  right,  mother,"  he  said.  "There's  no  need  to 
worry  about  me,  I  assure  you." 

"Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead — don't  go  and  bury  yourself 
along  with  them — that's  what  I  tell  you.  I  know  you  well 
enough." 

He  did  not  answer  this,  not  knowing  what  to  say.  The 
mother  sat  bunched  up  in  silence,  her  beautiful  white  hands, 
that  had  no  rings  whatsoever,  clasping  the  pommels  of  her 
arm-chair. 

"You  can't  do  it,"  she  said,  almost  bitterly.  "You  haven't 
the  nerve.  You're  as  weak  as  a  cat,  really — always  were. — 
Is  this  young  woman  staying  here?" 

"No,"  said  Gerald.      "She  is  going  home  to-night." 

"Then  she'd  better  have  the  dog-cart.      Does  she  go  far?" 

"Only  to  Beldover." 

"Ah!"  The  elderly  woman  never  looked  at  Gudrun,  yet 
she  seemed  to  take  knowledge  of  her  presence. 

"You  are  inclined  to  take  too  much  on  yourself,  Gerald," 


WOMEN  JN  LOVE  365 

said  the  mother,  pulling  herself  to  her  feet,  with  a  little 
difficulty. 

"Will  you  go,  mother?"   he  asked,  politely. 

"Yes,  I'll  go  up  again,"  she  replied.  Turning  to  Gudrun, 
she  bade  her  "Good-night."  Then  she  went  slowly  to  the 
door,  as  if  she  were  unaccustomed  to  walking.  At  the  door 
she  lifted  her  face  to  him,  implicitly.      He  kissed  her. 

"Don't  come  any  further  with  me,"  she  said,  in  her  barely 
audible  voice.     "I  don't  want  you  any  further." 

He  bade  her  good-night,  watched  her  across  to  the  stairs 
and  mount  slowly.  Then  he  closed  the  door  and  came  back 
to  Gudrun.      Gudrun  rose  also,  to  go. 

"A  queer  being,  my  mother,"  he  said. 

"Yes,"  replied  Gudrun. 

"She  has  her  own  thoughts." 

"Yes,"  said  Gudrun. 

Then  they  were  silent. 

"You  want  to  go?"  he  asked.  "Half  a  minute,  I'll 
just  have  a  horse  put  in — " 

"No,"  said  Gudrun.      "I  want  to  walkv" 

He  had  promised  to  walk  with  her  down  the  long,  lonely 
mile  of  drive,  and  she  wanted  this. 

"You  might  just  as  well  drive,"  he  said. 

"I'd  much  rather  walk,"  she  asserted,  with  emphasis. 

"You  would!  Then  I  will  come  along  with  you.  You 
know  where  your  things  are?   I'll  put  boots  on." 

He  put  on  a  cap,  and  an  overcoat  over  his  evening  dress. 
They  went  out  into  the  night. 

"Let  us  light  a  cigarette,"  he  said,  stopping  in  a  shel- 
tered angle  of  the  porch.     "You  have  one  too." 

So,  with  the  scent  of  tobacco  on  the  night  air,  they  set  off 
down  the  dark  drive  that  ran  between  close-cut  hedges  through 
sloping  meadows. 

He  wanted  to  put  his  arm  round  her.  If  he  could  put 
his  arm  round  her,  and  draw  her  against  him  as  they  walked, 
he  would  equilibrate  himself.  For  now  he  felt  like  a  pair  of 
scales,  the  half  of  which  tips  down  and  down  into  an  indefinite 
void.  He  must  recover  some  sort  of  balance.  And  here 
was  the  hope  and  the  perfect  recovery. 


366  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

Blind  to  her,  thinking  only  of  himself,  he  slipped  his  arm 
softly  round  her  waist,  and  drew  her  to  him.  Her  heart 
fainted,  feeling  herself  taken.  But  then,  his  arm  was  so  strong, 
she  quailed  under  its  powerful  close  grasp.  She  died  a  little 
death,  and  was  drawn  against  him  as  they  walked  down  the 
stormy  darkness.  He  seemed  to  balance  her  perfectly  in 
opposition  to  himself,  in  their  dual  motion  of  walking.  So, 
suddenly,  he  was  liberated  and  perfect,  strong,  heroic. 

He  put  his  hand  to  his  mouth  and  threw  his  cigarette 
away,  a  gleaming  point,  into  the  unseen  hedge.  Then  he 
was  quite  free  to  balance  her. 

"That's  better,"  he  said,  with  exultancy. 

The  exultation  in  his  voice  was  like  a  sweetish,  poisonous 
drug  to  her.  Did  she  then  mean  so  much  to  him !  She  sipped 
the  poison. 

"Are  you  happier?"  she  asked,  wistfully. 

"Much  better,"  he  said,  in  the  same  exultant  voice, 
"and  I  was  rather  far  gone." 

She  nestled  against  him.  He  felt  her  all  soft  and  warm, 
she  was  the  rich,  lovely  substance  of  his  being.  The  warmth 
and  motion  of  her  walk  suffused  through  him  wonderfully. 

"I'm  so  glad  if  I  help  you,"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  he  answered.  "There's  nobody  else  could  do  it, 
if  you  wouldn't." 

"That  is  true,"  she  said  to  herself,  with  a  thrill  of  strange, 
fatal  elation. 

As  they  walked,  he  seemed  to  lift  her  nearer  and  nearer 
to  himself,  till  she  moved  upon  the  firm  vehicle  of  his  body. 
He  was  so  strong,  so  sustaining,  and  he  could  not  be  opposed. 
She  drifted  along  in  a  wonderful  interfusion  of  physical  motion, 
down  the  dark,  blowy  hill-side.  Far  across  shone  the  little 
yellow  lights  of  Beldover,  many  of  them,  spread  in  a  thick 
patch  on  another  dark  hill.  But  he  and  she  were  walking 
in  perfect,  isolated  darkness,  outside  the  world. 

"But  how  much  do  you  care  for  me!"  came  her  voice, 
almost  querulous.  "You  see,  I  don't  know,  I  don't  under- 
stand !" 

"How  much!"  His  voice  rang  with  a  painful  elation.  "I 
don't  know  either — but  everything."     He  was  startled  by 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  367 

his  own  declaration.  It  was  true.  So  he  stripped  himself 
of  every  safeguard,  in  making  this  admission  to  her.  He  cared 
everything  for  her — she  was  everyhting. 

"But  I  can't  believe  it,"  said  her  low  voice,  amazed, 
trembling.  She  was  trembling  with  doubt  and  exultance. 
This  was  the  thing  she  wanted  to  hear,  only  this.  Yet  now  she 
heard  it,  heard  the  strange  clapping  vibration  of  truth  in  his 
voice  as  he  said  it,  she  could  not  believe.  She  could  not 
believe — she  did  not  believe.  Yet  she  believed,  triumphantly, 
with  fatal  exultance. 

"Why  not?"  he  said.  "Why  don't  you  believe  it? 
It's  true.  It  is  true,  as  we  stand  at  this  moment — "  he  stood 
still  with  her  in  the  wind;  "I  care  for  nothing  on  earth,  or 
in  heaven,  outside  this  spot  where  we  are.  And  it  isn't  my 
own  presence  I  care  about,  it  is  all  yours.  I'd  sell  my  soul 
a  hundred  times — but  I  couldn't  bear  not  to  have  you  here. 
I  couldn't  bear  to  be  alone.  My  brain  would  burst.  It 
is  true."     He  drew  her  closer  to  him,  with  definite  movement. 

"No,"  she  murmured,  afraid.  Yet  this  was  what  she 
wanted.     Why  did  she  so  lose  courage? 

They  resumed  their  strange  walk.  They  were  such 
strangers — and  yet  they  were  so  frightfully,  unthinkably 
near.  It  was  like  a  madness.  Yet  it  was  what  she  wanted, 
it  was  what  she  wanted.  They  had  descended  the  hill,  and 
now  they  were  coming  to  the  square  arch  where  the  road 
passed  under  the  colliery  railway.  The  arch,  Gudrun  knew, 
had  walls  of  squared  stone,  mossy  on  one  side  with  water 
that  trickled  down,  dry  on  the  other  side.  She  had  stood 
under  it  to  hear  the  train  rumble  thundering  over  the  logs 
overhead.  And  she  knew  that  under  this  dark  and  lonely 
bridge  the  young  colliers  stood  in  the  darkness  with  their 
sweethearts,  in  rainy  weather.  And  so  she  wanted  to  stand 
under  the  bridge  with  her  sweetheart,  and  be  kissed  under  the 
bridge  in  the  invisible  darkness.  Her  steps  dragged  as  she 
drew  near. 

So,  under  the  bridge,  they  came  to  a  standstill,  and  he 
lifted  her  upon  his  breast.  His  body  vibrated  taut  and  power- 
ful as  he  closed  upon  her  and  crushed  her,  breathless  and  dazed 
and  destroyed,  crushed  her  upon  his  breast.      Ah,  it  was 


368  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

terrible,  and  perfect.  Under  this  bridge,  the  colliers  pressed 
their  lovers  to  their  breast.  And  now,  under  the  bridge, 
the  master  of  them  all  pressed  her  to  himself !  And  how  much 
more  powerful  and  terrible  was  his  embrace  than  theirs, 
how  much  more  concentrated  and  supreme  his  love  was, 
than  theirs  in  the  same  sort!  She  felt  she  would  swoon,  die, 
under  the  vibrating,  inhuman  tension  of  his  arms  and  his 
body — she  would  pass  away.  Then  the  unthinkable  high 
vibration  slackened  and  became  more  undulating,  he 
slackened  and  drew  her  with  him  to  stand  with  his  back  to 
the  wall. 

She  was  almost  unconscious.  So  the  colliers'  lovers 
would  stand  with  their  backs  to  the  walls,  holding  their 
sweethearts  and  kissing  them  as  she  was  being  kissed.  Ah, 
but  would  their  kisses  be  fine  and  powerful  as  the  kisses  of 
the  firm-mouthed  master?  Even  the  keen,  short-cut  mous- 
tache— the  colliers  would  not  have  that. 

And  the  colliers'  sweethearts  would,  like  herself,  hang 
their  heads  back  limp  over  their  shoulder,  and  look  out  from 
the  dark  archway,  at  the  close  patch  of  yellow  lights  on  the 
unseen  hill  in  the  distance,  or  at  the  vague  form  of  trees, 
and  at  the  buildings  of  the  colliery  wood-yard,  in  the  other 
direction. 

His  arms  were  fast  around  her,  he  seemed  to  be  gathering 
her  into  himself,  her  warmth,  her  softness,  her  adorable 
weight,  drinking  in  the  suffusion  of  her  physical  being,  avidly. 
He  lifted  her,  and  seemed  to  pour  her  into  himself,  like  wine 
into  a  cup. 

"This  is  worth  everything,"  he  said,  in  a  strange,  pene- 
trating voice. 

So  she  relaxed,  and  seemed  to  melt,  to  flow  into  him, 
as  if  she  were  some  infinitely  warm  and  precious  suffusion 
filling  into  his  veins,  like  an  intoxicant.  Her  arms  were 
round  his  neck,  he  kissed  her  and  held  her  perfectly  suspended, 
she  was  all  slack  and  flowing  into  him,  and  he  was  the  firm, 
strong  cup  that  receives  the  wine  of  her  life.  So  she  lay  cast 
upon  him,  stranded,  lifted  up  against  him,  melting  and  melting 
under  his  kisses,  melting  into  his  limbs  and  bones,  as  if  he 
were  soft  iron  becoming  surcharged  with  her  electric  life. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  369 

Till  she  seemed  to  swoon,  gradually  her  mind  went,  and 
she  passed  away,  everything  in  her  was  melted  down  and  fluid, 
and  she  lay  still,  become  contained  by  him,  sleeping  in  him 
as  lightning  sleeps  in  a  pure,  soft  stone.  So  she  was  passed 
away  and  gone  in  him,  and  he  was  perfected. 

When  she  opened  her  eyes  again,  and  saw  the  patch  of 
lights  in  the  distance,  it  seemed  to  her  strange  that  the  world 
still  existed,  that  she  was  standing  under  the  bridge  resting 
her  head  on  Gerald's  breast.  Gerald — who  was  he?  He  was 
the  exquisite  adventure,  the  desirable  unknown  to  her. 

She  looked  up,  and  in  the  darkness  saw  his  face  above  her, 
his  shapely,  male  face.  There  seemed  a  faint,  white  light 
emitted  from  him,  a  white  aura,  as  if  he  were  visitor  from  the 
unseen.  She  reached  up,  like  Eve  reaching  to  the  apples 
on  the  tree  of  knowledge,  and  she  kissed  him,  though  her 
passion  was  a  transcendent  fear  of  the  thing  he  was,  touching 
his  face  with  her  infinitely  delicate,  encroaching,  wondering 
fingers.  Her  fingers  went  over  the  mould  of  his  face,  over 
his  features.  How  perfect  and  foreign  he  was — ah  how 
dangerous!  Her  soul  thrilled  with  complete  knowledge. 
This  was  the  glistening,  forbidden  apple,  this  face  of  a  man. 
She  kissed  him,  putting  her  fingers  over  his  face,  his  eyes, 
his  nostrils,  over  his  brows  and  his  ears,  to  his  neck,  to  know 
him,  to  gather  him  in  by  touch.  He  was  so  firm,  and  shapely, 
with  such  satisfying,  inconceivable  shapeliness,  strange,  yet 
unutterably  clear.  He  was  such  an  unutterable  enemy, 
yet  glistening  with  uncanny  white  fire.  She  wanted  to  touch 
him  and  touch  him  and  touch  him,  till  she  had  him  all  in  her 
hands,  till  she  had  strained  him  into  her  knowledge.  Ah, 
if  she  could  have  the  precious  knowledge  of  him,  she  would  be 
filled,  and  nothing  could  deprive  her  of  this.  For  he  was  so 
unsure,  so  risky  in  the  common  world  of  day. 

"You  are  so  beautiful,"  she  murmured  in  her  throat. 

He  wondered,  and  was  suspended.  But  she  felt  him  quiver, 
and  she  came  down  involuntarily  nearer  upon  him.  He 
could  not  help  himself.  Her  fingers  had  him  under  their 
power.  The  fathomless,  fathomless  desire  they  could  evoke 
in  him  was  deeper  than  death,  where  he  had  no  choice. 

But  she  knew  now,  and  it  was  enough.      For  the  time, 


870  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

her  soul  was  destroyed  with  the  exquisite  shock  of  his  invisible 
fluid  lightning.  She  knew.  And  this  knowledge  was  a  death 
from  which  she  must  recover.  How  much  more  of  him  was 
there  to  know?  Ah  much,  much,  many  days  harvesting  for 
her  large,  yet  perfectly  subtle  and  intelligent  hands  upon  the 
field  of  his  living,  radio-active  body.  Ah,  her  hands  were 
eager,  greedy  for  knowledge.  But  for  the  present  it  was 
enough,  enough,  as  much  as  her  soul  could  bear.  Too  much, 
and  she  would  shatter  herself,  she  would  fill  the  fine  vial  of 
her  soul  too  quickly,  and  it  would  break.  Enough  now- 
enough  for  the  time  being.  There  were  all  the  after  days 
when  her  hands,  like  birds,  could  feed  upon  the  fields  of  his 
mystical  plastic  form — till  then  enough. 

And  even  he  was  glad  to  be  checked,  rebuked,  held  back. 
For  to  desire  is  better  than  to  possess,  the  finality  of  the  end 
was  dreaded  as  deeply  as  it  was  desired. 

They  walked  on  towards  the  town,  towards  where  the 
lamps  threaded  singly,  at  long  intervals  down  the  dark  high- 
road of  the  valley.  They  came  at  length  to  the  gate  of  the 
drive. 

"Don't  come  any  further,"  she  said. 

"You  rather  I  didn't?"  he  asked,  relieved.  He  did  not 
want  to  go  up  the  public  streets  with  her,  his  soul  all  naked 
and  alight  as  it  was. 

"Much  rather — good-night."  She  held  out  her  hand. 
He  grasped  it,  then  touched  the  perilous,  potent  fingers  with 
his  lips. 

"Good-night,"  he  said.      "To-morrow." 

And  they  parted.  He  went  home  full  of  the  strength  and 
the  power  of  living  desire. 

But  the  next  day,  she  did  not  come,  she  sent  a  note  that 
she  was  kept  indoors  by  a  cold.  Here  was  a  torment!  But  he 
possessed  his  soul  in  some  sort  of  patience,  writing  a  brief 
answer,  telling  her  how  sorry  he  was  not  to  see  her. 

The  day  after  this,  he  stayed  at  home — it  seemed  so  futile 
to  go  down  to  the  office.  His  father  could  not  live  the  week 
out.     And  he  wanted  to  be  at  home,  suspended. 

Gerald  sat  on  a  chair  by  the  window  in  his  father's  room. 
The  landscape  outside  was  black  and  winter-sodden.      His 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  371 

father  lay  grey  and  ashen  on  the  bed,  a  nurse  moved  silently 
in  her  white  dress,  neat  and  elegant,  even  beautiful.  There 
was  a  scent  of  eau-de-cologne  in  the  room.  The  nurse  went 
out  of  the  room,  Gerald  was  alone  with  death,  facing  the 
winter-black  landscape. 

"Is  there  much  more  water  in  Denley?"  came  the  faint 
voice,  determined  and  querulous,  from  the  bed.  The  dying 
man  was  asking  about  a  leakage  from  Willey  Water  into  one 
of  the  pits. 

"Some  more — we  shall  have  to  run  off  the  lake,"  said 
Gerald. 

"Will  you?"  The  faint  voice  filtered  to  extinction.  There 
was  dead  stillness.  The  grey-faced,  sick  man  lay  with  eyes 
closed,  more  dead  than  death.  Gerald  looked  away.  He 
felt  his  heart  was  seared,  it  would  perish  if  this  went  on  much 
longer. 

Suddenly  he  heard  a  strange  noise.  Turning  round,  he 
saw  his  father's  eyes  wide  open,  strained  and  rolling  in  a  frenzy 
of  inhuman  struggling.  Gerald  started  to  his  feet,  and  stood 
transfixed  in  horror. 

"Wha-a-ah-h-h-"  came  a  horrible  choking  rattle  from 
his  father's  throat,  the  fearful,  frenzied  eye,  rolling  awfully 
in  its  wild  fruitless  search  for  help,  passed  blindly  over  Gerald, 
then  up  came  the  dark  blood  and  mess  pumping  over  the  face 
of  the  agonised  being,  the  tense  body  relaxed,  the  head  fell 
aside,  down  the  pillow. 

Gerald  stood  transfixed,  his  soul  echoing  in  horror.  He 
would  move,  but  he  could  not.  He  could  not  move  his  limbs. 
His  brain  seemed  to  re-echo,  like  a  pulse. 

The  nurse  in  white  softly  entered.  She  glanced  at  Gerald, 
then  at  the  bed. 

"•Ah!"  came  her  soft  whimpering  cry,  and  she  hurried 
forward  to  the  dead  man.  "Ah-h!"  came  the  slight  sound 
of  her  agitated  distress,  as  she  stood  bending  over  the  bed- 
side. Then  she  recovered,  turned,  and  came  for  towel  and 
sponge.  She  was  wiping  the  dead  face  carefully,  and  mur- 
muring, almost  whimpering,  very  softly:  "Poor  Mr.  Crich! — 
Poor  Mr.  Crich!— Oh  poor  Mr.  Crich!" 

"Is  he  dead?"  clanged  Gerald's  sharp  voice. 


372  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Oh  yes,  he's  gone,"  replied  the  soft,  moaning  voice  of  the 
nurse,  as  she  looked  up  at  Gerald's  face.  She  was  young  and 
beautiful  and  quivering.  A  strange  sort  of  grin  went  over 
Gerald's  face,  over  the  horror.  And  he  walked  out  of  the 
room. 

He  was  going  to  tell  his  mother.  On  the  landing  he  met 
his  brother  Basil. 

"He's  gone,  Basil,"  he  said,  scarcely  able  to  subdue  his 
voice,  not  to  let  an  unconscious,  frightening  exultation  sound 
through. 

"What?"   cried  Basil,  going  pale. 

Gerald  nodded.      Then  he  went  on  to  his  mother's  room. 

She  was  sitting  in  her  purple  gown,  sewing,  very  slowly 
sewing,  putting  in  a  stitch,  then  another  stitch.  She  looked 
up  at  Gerald  with  her  blue,  undaunted  eyes. 

"Father's  gone,"  he  said. 

"He's  dead?   Who  says  so?" 

"Oh,  you  know,  mother,  if  you  see  him." 

She  put  her  sewing  down,  and  slowly  rose. 

"Are  you  going  to  see  him?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,"  she  said. 

By  the  bedside  the  children  already  stood  in  a  weeping 
group. 

"Oh,  mother!"  cried  the  daughters,  almost  in  hysterics, 
weeping  loudly. 

But  the  mother  went  forward.  The  dead  man  lay  in 
repose,  as  if  gently  asleep,  so  gently,  so  peacefully,  like  a 
young  man  sleeping  in  purity.  He  was  still  warm.  She 
stood  looking  at  him  in  gloomy,  heavy  silence,  for  some  time. 

"Ay,"  she  said  bitterly,  at  length,  speaking  as  if  to  the 
unseen  witnesses  of  the  air.  "You're  dead."  She  stood  for 
some  minutes  in  silence,  looking  down.  "Beautiful,",  she 
asserted,  "beautiful  as  if  life  had  never  touched  you — never 
touched  you. — God  send  I  look  different. — I  hope  I  shall 
look  my  years,  when  I  am  dead. — Beautiful,  beautiful,"  she 
crooned  over  him.  "You  can  see  him  in  his  teens,  with  his 
first  beard  on  his  face. — A  beautiful  soul,  beautiful — "  Then 
there  was  a  tearing  in  her  voice  as  she  cried:  "None  of  you 
look  like  this,  when  you  are  dead!   Don't  let  it  happen  again." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  373 

It  was  a  strange,  wild  command  from  out  of  the  unknown. 
Her  children  moved  unconsciously  together,  in  a  nearer  group, 
at  the  dreadful  command  in  her  voice.  The  colour  was  flushed 
bright  in  her  cheek,  she  looked  awful  and  wonderful.  "Blame 
me,  blame  me  if  you  like,  that  he  lies  there  like  a  lad  in  his 
teens,  with  his  first  beard  on  his  face.  Blame  me  if  you  like. 
But  you  none  of  you  know."  She  was  silent  in  intense  silence. 
Then  there  came,  in  a  low,  tense  voice:  "If  I  thought  that  the 
children  I  bore  would  lie  looking  like  that  in  death,  I'd  strangle 
them  when  they  were  infants,  yes — " 

"No  mother,"  came  the  strange,  clarion  voice  of  Gerald 
from  the  background,  "we  are  different,  we  don't  blame 
you." 

She  turned  and  looked  full  in  his  eyes.  Then  she  lifted 
her  hands  in  a  strange  half-gesture  of  mad  despair. 

"Pray!"  she  said  strongly.  "Pray  for  yourselves  to  God, 
for  there's  no  help  for  you  from  your  parents." 

"Oh  mother!"  cried  her  daughter  wildly. 

But  she  had  turned  and  gone,  and  they  all  went  quickly 
away  from  each  other. 

When  Gudrun  heard  that  Mr.  Crich  was  dead,  she  felt 
rebuked.  She  had  stayed  away  lest  Gerald  should  think  her 
too  easy  of  winning.  And  now,  he  was  in  the  midst  of  trouble, 
whilst  she  was  cold. 

The  following  day  she  went  up  as  usual  to  Winifred,  who 
was  glad  to  see  her,  glad  to  get  away  into  the  studio.  The 
girl  had  wept,  and  then,  too  frightened,  had  turned  aside  to 
avoid  any  more  tragic  eventuality.  She  and  Gudrun  resumed 
work  as  usual,  in  the  isolation  of  the  studio,  and  this  seemed 
an  immeasurable  happiness,  a  pure  world  of  freedom,  after  the 
aimlessness  and  misery  of  the  house.  Gudrun  stayed  on  till 
evening.  She  and  Winifred  had  dinner  brought  up  to  the 
studio,  where  they  ate  in  freedom,  away  from  all  the  people 
in  the  house. 

After  dinner  Gerald  came  up.  The  great  high  studio  was 
full  of  shadow  and  a  fragrance  of  coffee.  Gudrun  and  Wini- 
fred had  a  little  table  near  the  fire  at  the  far  end,  with  a  white 
lamp  whose  light  did  not  travel  far.  They  were  a  tiny 
world   to   themselves,   the   two  girls    surrounded    by    lovely 


374  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

shadows,  the  beams  and  rafters  shadowy  overhead,  the 
benches  and  implements  shadowy  down  the  studio. 

"You  are  cosy  enough  here,"  said  Gerald,  going  up  to  them. 

There  was  a  low  brick  fireplace,  full  of  fire,  an  old  blue 
Turkish  rug,  the  little  oak  table  with  the  lamp  and  the 
white-and-blue  cloth  and  the  dessert,  and  Gudrun  making 
coffee  in  an  odd  brass  coffee-maker,  and  Winifred  scalding 
a  little  milk  in  a  tiny  saucepan. 

"Have  you  had  coffee?"   said  Gudrun. 

"I  have,  but  I'll  have  some  more  with  you,"  he  replied. 

"Then  you  must  have  it  in  a  glass — there  are  only  two 
cups,"  said  Winifred. 

"It  is  the  same  to  me,"  he  said,  taking  a  chair  and  coming 
into  the  charmed  circle  of  the  girls.  How  happy  they  were, 
how  cosy  and  glamorous  it  was  with  them,  in  a  world  of  lofty 
shadows!  The  outside  world,  in  which  he  had  been  trans- 
acting funeral  business  all  the  day  was  completely  wiped  out. 
In  an  instant  he  snuffed  glamour  and  magic. 

They  had  all  their  things  very  dainty,  two  odd  and  lovely 
little  cups,  scarlet  and  solid  gilt,  and  a  little  black  jug  with 
scarlet  discs,  and  the  curious  coffee-machine,  whose  spirit- 
flame  flowed  steadily,  almost  invisibly.  There  was  the  effect 
of  rather  sinister  richness,  in  which  Gerald  at  once  escaped 
himself. 

They  all  sat  down,  and  Gudrun  carefully  poured  out  the 
coffee. 

"Will  you  have  milk?"  she  asked  calmly,  yet  nervously 
poising  the  little  black  jug  with  its  big  red  dots.  She  was 
always  so  completely  controlled,  yet  so  bitterly  nervous. 

"No,  I  won't,"  he  replied. 

So,  with  a  curious  humility,  she  placed  him  the  little  cup 
of  coffee,  and  herself  took  the  awkward  tumbler.  She  seemed 
to  want  to  serve  him. 

"Why  don't  you  give  me  the  glass — it  is  so  clumsy  for 
you,"  he  said.  He  would  much  rather  have  had  it,  and  seen 
her  daintily  served.  But  she  was  silent,  pleased  with  the  dis- 
parity, with  her  self-abasement. 

"You  are  quite  en  menage,"  he  said. 

"Yes.     We  aren't  really  at  home  to  visitors."  said  Winifred. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  375 

"You're  not?  Then  I'm  an  intruder?" 

For  once  he  felt  his  conventional  dress  was  out  of  place, 
he  was  an  outsider. 

Gudrun  was  very  quiet.  She  did  not  feel  drawn  to  talk 
to  him.  At  this  stage  silence  was  best — or  mere  light 
words.  It  was  best  to  leave  serious  things  aside.  So  they 
talked  gaily  and  lightly,  till  they  heard  the  man  below  lead 
out  the  horse,  and  call  it  to  "back-back!"  into  the  dog-cart 
that  was  to  take  Gudrun  home.  So  she  put  on  her  things, 
and  shook  hands  with  Gerald,  without  once  meeting  his  eyes. 
And  she  was  gone. 

The  funeral  was  detestable.  Afterwards,  at  the  tea-table, 
the  daughters  kept  saying — "He  was  a  good  father  to  us — 
the  best  father  in  the  world" — or  else — "We  shan't  easily 
find  another  man  as  good  as  father  was." 

Gerald  acquiesced  in  all  this.  It  was  the  right  conventional 
attitude,  and,  as  far  as  the  world  went,  he  believed  in  the 
conventions.  He  took  it  as  a  matter  of  course.  But  Wini- 
fred hated  everything,  and  hid  in  the  studio,  and  cried  her 
heart  out,  and  wished  Gudrun  would  come. 

Luckily  everybody  was  going  away.  The  Criches  never 
stayed  long  at  home.  By  dinner-time,  Gerald  was  left  quite 
alone.  Even  Winifred  was  carried  off  to  London,  for  a  few 
days  with  her  sister  Laura. 

But  when  Gerald  was  really  left  alone,  he  could  not  bear 
it.  One  day  passed  by,  and  another.  And  all  the  time  he 
was  like  a  man  hung  in  chains  over  the  edge  of  an  abyss. 
Struggle  as  he  might,  he  could  not  turn  himself  to  the  solid 
earth,  he  could  not  get  footing.  He  was  suspended  on  the 
edge  of  a  void,  writhing.  Whatever  he  thought  of,  was  the 
abyss — whether  it  were  friends  or  strangers,  or  work  or  play, 
it  all  showed  him  only  the  same  bottomless  void,  in  which 
his  heart  swung  perishing.  There  was  no  escape,  there  was 
nothing  to  grasp  hold  of.  He  must  writhe  on  the  edge  of  the 
chasm,  suspended  in  chains  of  invisible  physical  life. 

At  6rst  he  was  quiet,  he  kept  still,  expecting  the  extremity 
to  pass  away,  expecting  to  find  himself  released  into  the  world 
of  the  living,  after  this  extremity  of  penance.  But  it  did 
not  pass,  and  a  crisis  gained  upon  him. 


376  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

As  the  evening  of  the  third  day  came  on,  his  heart  rang 
with  fear.  He  could  not  bear  another  night.  Another  night 
was  coming  on,  for  another  night  he  was  to  be  suspended  in 
chains  of  physical  life,  over  the  bottomless  pit  of  nothingness. 
And  he  could  not  bear  it.  He  could  not  bear  it.  He  was 
frightened  deeply,  and  coldly,  frightened  in  his  soul.  He  did 
not  believe  in  his  own  strength  any  more.  He  could  not  fall 
into  this  infinite  void,  and  rise  again.  If  he  fell,  he  would  be 
gone  for  ever.  He  must  withdraw,  he  must  seek  reinforce- 
ments. He  did  not  believe  in  his  own  single  self,  any  further 
than  this. 

After  dinner,  faced  with  the  ultimate  experience  of  his 
own  nothingness,  he  turned  aside.  He  pulled  on  his  boots, 
put  on  his  coat,  and  set  out  to  walk  in  the  night. 

It  was  dark  and  misty.  He  went  through  the  wood, 
stumbling  and  feeling  his  way  to  the  Mill.  Birkin  was  away. 
Good — he  was  half  glad.  He  turned  up  the  hill,  and  stumbled 
blindly  over  the  wild  slopes,  having  lost  the  path  in  the 
complete  darkness.  It  was  boring.  Where  was  he  going? 
No  matter.  He  stumbled  on  till  he  came  to  a  path  again. 
Then  he  went  on  through  another  wood.  His  mind  became 
dark,  he  went  on  automatically.  Without  thought  or  sen- 
sation, he  stumbled  unevenly  on,  out  into  the  open  again, 
fumbling  for  stiles,  losing  the  path,  and  going  along  the  hedges 
of  the  fields  till  he  came  to  the  outlet. 

And  at  last  he  came  to  high  road.  It  had  distracted  him 
to  struggle  blindly  through  the  maze  of  darkness.  But  now, 
he  must  take  a  direction.  And  he  did  not  even  know  where 
he  was.  But  he  must  take  a  direction  now.  Nothing  would 
be  resolved  by  merely  walking,  walking  away.  He  had  to 
take  a  direction. 

He  stood  still  on  the  road,  that  was  high  in  the  utterly 
dark  night,  and  he  did  not  know  where  he  was.  It  was  a 
strange  sensation,  his  heart  beating,  and  ringed  round  with 
the  utterly  unknown  darkness.  So  he  stood  for  some 
time. 

Then  he  heard  footsteps,  and  saw  a  small,  swinging  light. 
He  immediately  went  towards  this.      It  was  a  miner. 

"Can  you  tell  me,"  he  said,  "where  this  road  goes?" 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  377 

"Road? — Ay,  it  goos  ter  Whatmore." 

"Whatmore!  Oh  thank  you,  that's  right.  I  thought  I 
was  wrong.     Good-night." 

"Good-night,"  replied  the  broad  voice  of  the  miner. 

Gerald  guessed  where  he  was.  At  least,  when  he  came  to 
Whatmore,  he  would  know.  He  was  glad  to  be  on  a  high 
road.      He  walked  forward  as  in  a  sleep  of  decision. 

That  was  Whatmore  Village — ?  Yes,  the  Kings  Head — 
and  there  the  hall  gates.  He  descended  the  steep  hill  almost 
running.  Winding  through  the  hollow,  he  passed  the  Gram- 
mar School,  and  came  to  Willey  Green  Church.  The  Church- 
yard!  He  halted. 

Then  in  another  moment  he  had  clambered  up  the  wall 
and  was  going  among  the  graves.  Even  in  this  darkness 
he  could  see  the  heaped  pallor  of  old  white  flowers  at  his  feet. 
This  then  was  the  grave.  He  stooped  down.  The  flowers 
were  cold  and  clammy.  There  was  a  raw  scent  of  chrysanthe- 
mums and  tube-roses,  deadened.  He  felt  the  clay  beneath, 
and  shrank,  it  was  so  horribly  cold  and  sticky.  He  stood 
away  in  revulsion. 

Here  was  one  centre  then,  here  in  the  complete  darkness 
beside  the  unseen,  raw  grave.  But  there  was  nothing  for 
him  here.  No,  he  had  nothing  to  stay  here  for.  He  felt 
as  if  some  of  the  clay  were  sticking  cold  and  unclean,  on  his 
heart.     No,  enough  of  this. 

Where  then? — home?  Never!  It  was  no  use  going  there. 
That  was  less  than  no  use.  It  could  not  be  done.  There 
was  somewhere  else  to  go.     Where? 

A  dangerous  resolve  formed  in  his  heart,  like  a  fixed  idea. 
There  was  Gudrun — she  would  be  safe  in  her  home.  But 
he  could  get  at  her — he  would  get  at  her.  He  would  not  go 
back  to-night  till  he  had  come  to  her,  if  it  cost  him  his  life. 
He  staked  his  all  on  this  throw. 

He  set  off  walking  straight  across  the  fields  towards 
Beldover.  It  was  so  dark,  nobody  could  ever  see  him.  His 
feet  were  wet  and  cold,  heavy  with  clay.  But  he  went  on 
persistently,  like  a  wind,  straight  forward,  as  if  to  his  fate. 
There  were  great  gaps  in  his  consciousness.  He  was  conscious 
that  he  was  at  Winthorpe  hamlet,  but  quite  unconscious  how 


378  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

he  had  got  there.  And  then,  as  in  a  dream,  he  was  in  the 
long  street  of  Beldover,  with  its  street-lamps. 

There  was  a  noise  of  voices,  and  of  a  door  shutting  loudly, 
and  being  barred,  and  of  men  talking  in  the  night.  The 
"Lord  Nelson"  had  just  closed,  and  the  drinkers  were  going 
home.  He  had  better  ask  one  of  these  where  she  lived — for 
he  did  not  know  the  side  streets  at  all. 

"Can  you  tell  me  where  Somerset  Drive  is?"  he  asked 
of  one  of  the  uneven  men. 

"Where  what?"   replied  the  tipsy  miner's  voice. 

"Somerset  Drive." 

"Somerset  Drive! — I've  heard  o'  such  a  place,  but  I 
couldn't  for  my  life  say  where  it  is.  Who  might  you  be 
wanting?" 

"Mr.  Brangwen — William  Brangwen." 

"William  Brangwen — ? — ?" 

"Who  teaches  at  the  Grammar  School,  at  Willey  Green — 
his  daughter  teaches  there  too." 

"0 — o — o — oh,  Brangwen!  Now  I've  got  you.  Of  course, 
William  Brangwen!  Yes,  yes,  he's  got  two  lasses  as  teachers, 
aside  hisself.  Ay,  that's  him — that's  him! — Why  certainly, 
I  know  where  he  lives,  back  your  life  I  do!  Yi — what  place 
do  they  ca'  it?" 

"Somerset  Drive,"  repeated  Gerald  patiently.  He  knew 
his  own  colliers  fairly  well. 

"Somerset  Drive,  for  certain!"  said  the  collier,  swinging 
his  arm  as  if  catching  something  up.  "Somerset  Drive — yi! 
I  couldn't  for  my  life  lay  hold  o'  the  lercality  o'  the  place. 
Yis,  I  know  the  place,  to  be  sure  I  do — " 

He  turned  unsteadily  on  his  feet,  and  pointed  up  the  dark, 
nigh-deserted  road. 

"You  go  up  theer— an'  you  ta'e  th'  first — yi,  th'  first  turn- 
in'  on  your  left — o'  that  side — past  Withamses  tuffy  shop — " 

"J  know,"  said  Gerald. 

"Ay!  You  go  down  a  bit,  past  wheer  th'  water-man  lives — 
and  then  Somerset  Drive,  as  they  ca'  it,  branches  off  on  't 
right  hand  side — an'  there's  nowt  but  three  houses  in  it, 
no  more  than  three,  I  believe, — an'  I'm  a'most  certain  as 
theirs  is  th'  last — th'  last  o'  th'  three — you 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  Sid 

"Thank  you  very  much,"  said  Gerald.      "Good-night." 

And  he  started  off,  leaving  the  tipsy  man  there  standing 
rooted. 

Gerald  went  past  the  dark  shops  and  houses,  most  of  them 
sleeping  now,  and  twisted  round  to  the  little  blind  road  that 
ended  on  a  field  of  darkness.  He  slowed  down,  as  he  neared 
his  goal,  not  knowing  how  he  should  proceed.  What  if  the 
house  were  closed  in  darkness? 

But  it  was  not.  He  saw  a  big  lighted  window,  and  heard 
voices,  then  a  gate  banged.  His  quick  ears  caught  the  sound 
of  Birkin's  voice,  his  keen  eyes  made  out  Birkin,  with  Ursula 
standing  in  a  pale  dress  on  the  step  of  the  garden  path.  Then 
Ursula  stepped  down,  and  came  along  the  road,  holding 
Birkin's  arm. 

Gerald  went  across  into  the  darkness  and  they  dawdled 
past  him,  talking  happily,  Birkin's  voice  low,  Ursula's  high 
and  distinct.     Gerald  went  quickly  to  the  house. 

The  blinds  were  drawn  before  the  big,  lighted  window 
of  the  dining  room.  Looking  up  the  path  at  the  side  he  could 
see  the  door  left  open,  shedding  a  soft,  coloured  light  from  the 
hall  lamp.  He  went  quickly  and  silently  up  the  path,  and 
looked  up  into  the  hall.  There  were  pictures  on  the  walls, 
and  the  antlers  of  a  stag — and  the  stairs  going  up  on  one 
side — and  just  near  the  foot  of  the  stairs  the  half  opened  door 
of  the  dining-room. 

With  heart  drawn  fine,  Gerald  stepped  into  the  hall, 
whose  floor  was  of  coloured  mosaic,  went  quickly  and  looked 
into  the  large,  pleasant  room.  In  a  chair  by  the  fire,  the 
father  sat  asleep,  his  head  tilted  back  against  the  side  of  the 
big  oak  chimney  piece,  his  ruddy  face  seen  fore-shortened, 
the  nostrils  open,  the  mouth  fallen  a  little.  It  would  take  the 
merest  sound  to  wake  him. 

Gerald  stood  a  second  suspended.  He  glanced  down 
the  passage  behind  him.  It  was  all  dark.  Again  he  was 
suspended.  Then  he  went  swiftly  upstairs.  His  senses 
were  so  finely,  almost  supernaturally  keen,  that  he  seemed  to 
cast  his  own  will  over  the  half-unconscious  house. 

He  came  to  the  first  landing.  There  he  stood,  scarcely 
breathing.      Again,  corresponding  to  the  door  below,  there 


380  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

was  a  door  again.  That  would  be  the  mother's  room.  He 
could  hear  her  moving  about  in  the  candle-light.  She  would 
be  expecting  her  husband  to  come  up.  He  looked  along  the 
dark  landing. 

Then,  silently,  on  infinitely  careful  feet,  he  went  along 
the  passage,  feeling  the  wall  with  the  extreme  tips  of  his 
fingers.  There  was  a  door.  He  stood  and  listened.  He 
could  hear  two  people's  breathing.  It  was  not  that.  He 
went  stealthily  forward.  There  was  another  door,  slightly 
open.  The  room  was  in  darkness.  Empty.  Then  there 
was  the  bathroom,  he  could  smell  the  soap  and  the  heat. 
Then  at  the  end  another  bedroom — one  soft  breathing. 
This  was  she. 

With  an  almost  occult  carefulness  he  turned  the  door 
handle,  and  opened  the  door  an  inch.  It  creaked  slightly. 
Then  he  opened  it  another  inch — then  another.  His  heart 
did  not  beat,  he  seemed  to  create  a  silence  about  himself,  an 
obliviousness. 

He  was  in  the  room.  Still  the  sleeper  breathed  softly. 
It  was  very  dark.  He  felt  his  way  forward  inch  by  inch, 
with  his  feet  and  hands.  He  touched  the  bed,  he  could  hear 
the  sleeper.  He  drew  nearer,  bending  close  as  if  his  eyes 
would  disclose  whatever  there  was.  And  then,  very  near 
his  face,  to  his  fear,  he  saw  the  round,  dark  head  of  a  boy. 

He  recovered,  turned  round,  saw  the  door  afar,  a  faint 
light  revealed.  And  he  retreated  swiftly,  drew  the  door  to 
without  fastening  it,  and  passed  rapidly  down  the  passage. 
At  the  head  of  the  stairs  he  hesitated.  There  was  still  time 
to  flee. 

But  it  was  unthinkable.  He  would  maintain  his  will. 
He  turned  past  the  door  of  the  parental  bedroom  like  a  shadow, 
and  was  climbing  the  second  flight  of  stairs.  They  creaked 
under  his  weight — it  was  exasperating.  Ah  what  disaster,  if  the 
mother's  door  opened  just  beneath  him,  and  she  saw  him!  It 
would  have  to  be,  if  it  were  so.      He  held  the  control  still. 

He  was  not  quite  up  these  stairs  when  he  heard  a  quick 
running  of  feet  below,  the  outer  door  was  closed  and  locked, 
he  heard  Ursula's  voice,  then  the  father's  sleepy  exclamation. 
He  pressed  on  swiftly  to  the  upper  landing. 


Women  in  love  ssi 

Again  a  door  was  ajar,  a  room  was  empty.  Feeling  his 
way  forward,  with  the  tips  of  his  fingers,  travelling  rapidly, 
like  a  blind  man,  anxious  lest  Ursula  should  come  upstairs, 
he  found  another  door.  There,  with  his  preternaturally 
fine  senses  alert,  he  listened.  He  heard  someone  moving  in 
bed.     This  would  be  she. 

Softly  now,  like  one  who  has  only  one  sense,  the  tactile 
sense,  he  turned  the  latch.  It  clicked.  He  held  still.  The 
bed-clothes  rustled.  His  heart  did  not  beat.  Then  again 
he  drew  the  latch  back,  and  very  gently  pushed  the  door. 
It  made  a  sticking  noise  as  it  gave. 

"Ursula?"  said  Gudrun's  voice,  frightened.  He  quickly 
opened  the  door  and  pushed  it  behind  him. 

"Is  it  you,  Ursula?"  came  Gudrun's  frightened  voice. 
He  heard  her  sitting  up  in  bed.  In  another  moment  she  would 
scream. 

"No,  it's  me,"  he  said,  feeling  his  way  towards  her.  "It 
is  I,  Gerald." 

She  sat  motionless  in  her  bed  in  sheer  astonishment. 
She  was  too  astonished,  too  much  taken  by  surprise,  even 
to  be  afraid. 

"Gerald?"  she  echoed,  in  blank  amazement.  He  had 
found  his  way  to  the  bed,  and  his  outstretched  hand  touched 
her  warm  breast  blindly.     She  shrank  away. 

"Let  me  make  a  light,"  she  said,  springing  out. 

He  stood  perfectly  motionless.  He  heard  her  touch  the 
match-box,  he  heard  her  fingers  in  their  movement.  Then, 
he  saw  her  in  the  light  of  a  match,  which  she  held  to  the  candle. 
The  light  rose  in  the  room,  then  sank  to  a  small  dimness,  as 
the  flame  sank  down  on  the  candle,  before  it  mounted  again. 

She  looked  at  him,  as  he  stood  near  the  other  side  of  the 
bed.  His  cap  was  pulled  low  over  his  brow,  his  black  over- 
coat was  buttoned  close  up  to  his  chin.  His  face  was  strange 
and  luminous.  He  was  inevitable  as  a  supernatural  being. 
When  she  had  seen  him,  she  knew.  She  knew  there  was  some- 
thing fatal  in  the  situation,  and  she  must  accept  it.  Yet 
she  must  challenge  him. 

"How  did  you  come  up?"   she  asked. 

"I  walked  up  the  stairs — the  door  was  open." 


382  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

She  looked  at  him. 

"I  haven't  closed  this  door,  either,"  he  said.  She  walked 
swiftly  across  the  room,  and  closed  her  door,  softly,  and 
locked  it.      Then  she  came  back. 

She  was  wonderful,  with  startled  eyes  and  flushed  cheeks, 
and  her  plait  of  hair  rather  short  and  thick  down  her  back, 
and  her  long,  fine  white  night-dress  falling  to  her  feet. 

She  saw  that  his  boots  were  all  clayey,  even  his  trousers 
were  plastered  with  clay.  And  she  wondered  if  he  had  made 
footprints  all  the  way  up.  He  was  a  very  strange  figure, 
standing  in  her  bedroom,  near  the  tossed  bed. 

"Why  have  you  come?"   she  asked,  almost  querulous. 

"I  wanted  to,"  he  replied. 

And  this  she  could  see  from  his  face.      It  was  fate. 

"You  are  so  muddy,"  she  said,  in  distaste,  but  gently. 

He  looked  down  at  his  feet. 

"I  was  walking  in  the  dark,"  he  replied.  But  he  felt 
vividly  elated.  There  was  a  pause.  He  stood  on  one  side 
of  the  tumbled  bed,  she  on  the  other.  He  did  not  even  take 
his  cap  from  his  brows. 

"And  what  do  you  want  of  me,"  she  challenged. 

He  looked  aside,  and  did  not  answer.  Save  for  the  extreme 
beauty  and  mystic  attractiveness  of  this  distinct,  strange  face, 
she  would  have  sent  him  away.  But  his  face  was  too  wonder- 
ful and  undiscovered  to  her.  It  fascinated  her  with  the  fas- 
cination of  pure  beauty,  cast  a  spell  on  her,  like  nostalgia, 
an  ache. 

"What  do  you  want  of  me?"  she  repeated  in  an  estranged 
voice. 

He  pulled  off  his  cap,  in  a  movement  of  dream-liberation, 
and  went  across  to  her.  But  he  could  not  touch  her,  because 
she  stood  barefoot  in  her  night-dress,  and  he  was  muddy  and 
damp.  Her  eyes,  wide  and  large  and  wondering,  watched 
him,  and  asked  him  the  ultimate  question. 

"I  came — because  I  must,"  he  said.      "Why  do  you  ask?" 

She  looked  at  him  in  doubt  and  wonder. 

"I  must  ask,"  she  said. 

He  shook  his  head  slightly. 

"There  is  no  answer,"  he  replied,  with  strange  vacancy. 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  383 

There  was  about  him  a  curious,  and  almost  godlike  air 
of  simplicity  and  naive  directness.  He  reminded  her  of  an 
apparition,  the  young  Hermes. 

"But  why  did  you  come  to  me?"  she  persisted. 

"Because — it  has  to  be  so. — If  there  weren't  you  in  the 
world,  then  /  shouldn't  be  in  the  world,  either." 

She  stood  looking  at  him,  with  large,  wide,  wondering, 
stricken  eyes.  His  eyes  were  looking  steadily  into  hers  all 
the  time,  and  he  seemed  fixed  in  an  odd  supernatural  stead- 
fastness. She  sighed.  She  was  lost  now.  She  had  no 
choice. 

"Won't  you  take  off  your  boots,"  she  said.  "They  must 
be  wet." 

He  dropped  his  cap  on  a  chair,  unbuttoned  his  overcoat, 
lifting  up  his  chin  to  unfasten  the  throat  buttons.  His  short, 
keen  hair  was  ruffled.  He  was  so  beautifully  blond,  like 
wheat.     He  pulled  off  his  overcoat. 

Quickly  he  pulled  off  his  jacket,  pulled  loose  his  black  tie, 
and  was  unfastening  his  studs,  which  were  headed  each  with 
a  pearl.  She  listened,  watching,  hoping  no  one  would  hear 
the  starched  linen  crackle.  It  seemed  to  snap  like  pistol- 
shots. 

He  had  come  for  vindication.  She  let  him  hold  her  in 
his  arms,  clasp  her  close  against  him.  He  found  in  her  an 
infinite  relief.  Into  her  he  poured  all  his  pent-up  darkness 
and  corrosive  death,  and  he  was  whole  again.  It  was  wonder- 
ful, marvellous,  it  was  a  miracle.  This  was  the  ever-recur- 
rent miracle  of  his  life,  at  the  knowledge  of  which  he  was 
lost  in  an  ecstasy  of  relief  and  wonder.  And  she,  subject, 
received  him  as  a  vessel  filled  with  his  bitter  potion  of  death. 
She  had  no  power  at  this  crisis  to  resist.  The  terrible  fric- 
tional  violence  of  death  filled  her,  and  she  received  it  in  an 
ecstasy  of  subjection,  in  throes  of  acute,  violent  sensation. 

As  he  drew  nearer  to  her,  he  plunged  deeper  into  her  envel- 
oping soft  warmth,  a  wonderful  creative  heat  that  penetrated 
his  veins  and  gave  him  life  again.  He  felt  himself  dissolving 
and  sinking  to  rest  in  the  bath  of  her  living  strength.  It 
seemed  as  if  her  heart  in  her  breast  were  a  second  unconquer- 
able sun,  into  the  glow  and  creative  strength  of  which  he 


384  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

plunged  further  and  further.  All  his  veins,  that  were 
murdered  and  lacerated,  healed  softly  as  life  came  pulsing 
in,  stealing  invisibly  in  to  him  as  if  it  were  the  all-powerful 
effluence  of  the  sun.  His  blood,  which  seemed  to  have  been 
drawn  back  into  death,  came  ebbing  on  the  return,  surely, 
beautifully,  powerfully. 

He  felt  his  limbs  growing  fuller  and  flexible  with  life, 
his  body  gained  an  unknown  strength.  He  was  a  man  again, 
strong  and  rounded.  And  he  was  a  child,  so  soothed  and 
restored  and  full  of  gratitude. 

And  she,  she  was  the  great  bath  of  life,  he  worshipped 
her.  Mother  and  substance  of  all  life  she  was.  And  he, 
child  and  man,  received  of  her  and  was  made  whole.  His 
pure  body  was  almost  killed.  But  the  miraculous,  soft 
effluence  of  her  breast  suffused  over  him,  over  his  seared, 
damaged  brain,  like  a  healing  lymph,  like  a  soft,  soothing 
flow  of  life  itself,  perfect  as  if  he  were  bathed  in  the  womb  again. 

His  brain  was  hurt,  seared,  the  tissue  was  as  if  destroyed. 
He  had  not  known  how  hurt  he  was,  how  his  tissue,  the  very 
tissue  of  his  brain  was  damaged  by  the  corrosive  flood  of 
death.  Now,  as  the  healing  lymph  of  her  effluence  flowed 
through  him,  he  knew  how  destroyed  he  was,  like  a  plant 
whose  tissue  is  burst  from  inwards  by  a  frost. 

He  buried  his  small,  hard  head  between  her  breasts,  and 
pressed  her  breasts  against  him  with  his  hands.  And  she 
with  quivering  hands  pressed  his  head  against  her,  as  he  lay 
suffused  out,  and  she  lay  fully  conscious.  The  lovely  creative 
warmth  flooded  through  him  like  a  sleep  of  fecundity  within 
the  womb.  Ah,  if  only  she  would  grant  him  the  flow  of  this 
living  effluence,  he  would  be  restored,  he  would  be  complete 
again.  He  was  afraid  she  would  deny  him  before  it  was 
finished.  Like  a  child  at  the  breast,  he  cleaved  intensely 
to  her,  and  she  could  not  put  him  away.  He  was  infinitely 
grateful,  as  to  God,  or  as  an  infant  is  at  its  mother's  breast. 
He  was  glad  and  grateful  like  a  delirium,  as  he  felt  his  own 
wholeness  come  over  him  again,  as  he  felt  the  full,  unutter- 
able sleep  coming  over  him,  the  sleep  of  complete  exhaustion 
and  restoration. 

But  Gudrun  lay  wide  awake,  destroyed  into  perfect  con- 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  385 

sciousness.  She  lay  motionless,  with  wide  eyes  staring 
motionless  into  the  darkness,  whilst  he  was  sunk  away  in 
sleep,  his  arms  round  her. 

She  seemed  to  be  hearing  waves  break  on  a  hidden  shore, 
long,  slow,  gloomy  waves,  breaking  with  the  rhythm  of  fate, 
so  monotonously  that  it  seemed  eternal.  This  endless  break- 
ing of  slow,  sullen  waves  of  fate  held  her  like  a  possession, 
whilst  she  lay  with  dark,  wide  eyes  looking  into  the  darkness. 
She  could  see  so  far,  as  far  as  eternity — yet  she  saw  nothing. 
She  was  suspended  in  perfect  consciousness — and  of  what 
was  she  conscious? 

This  mood  of  extremity,  when  she  lay  staring  into  eternity, 
utterly  suspended,  and  conscious  of  everything,  to  the  last 
limits,  passed  and  left  her  uneasy.  She  had  lain  so  long 
motionless.  She  moved,  she  became  self-conscious.  She 
wanted  to  look  at  him,  to  see  him. 

But  she  dared  not  make  a  light,  because  she  knew  he  would 
wake,  and  she  did  not  want  to  break  his  perfect  sleep,  that 
she  knew  he  had  got  of  her. 

She  disengaged  herself,  softly,  and  rose  up  a  little  to  look 
at  him.  There  was  a  faint  light,  it  seemed  to  her,  in  the 
room.  She  could  just  distinguish  his  features,  as  he  slept 
the  perfect  sleep.  In  this  darkness,  she  seemed  to  see  him 
so  distinctly.  But  he  was  far  off,  in  another  world.  Ah, 
she  could  shriek  with  torment,  he  was  so  far  off,  and  perfected, 
in  another  world.  She  seemed  to  look  at  him  as  at  a  pebble 
far  away  under  clear  dark  water.  And  here  was  she,  left 
with  all  the  anguish  of  consciousness,  whilst  he  was  sunk 
deep  into  the  other  element  of  mindless,  remote,  living  shadow- 
gleam.  He  was  beautiful,  far-off,  and  perfected.  They 
would  never  be  together.  Ah,  this  awful,  inhuman  distance 
which  would  always  be  interposed  between  her  and  the  other 
being! 

There  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  lie  still  and  endure.  She 
felt  an  overwhelming  tenderness  for  him,  and  a  dark,  under- 
stirring  of  jealous  hatred,  that  he  should  lie  so  perfect  and 
immune,  in  another  world,  whilst  she  was  tormented  with 
violent  wakefulness,  cast  out  in  the  outer  darkness. 

She  lay  in  intense  and  vivid  consciousness,  an  exhausting 


386  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

super-consciousness.  The  church  clock  struck  the  hours,  it 
seemed  to  her,  in  quick  succession.  She  heard  them  dis- 
tinctly in  the  tension  of  her  vivid  consciousness.  And  he 
slept  as  if  time  were  one  moment,  unchanging  and  unmoving. 

She  was  exhausted,  wearied.  Yet  she  must  continue  in 
this  state  of  violent  active  superconsciousness.  She  was 
conscious  of  everything — her  childhood,  her  girlhood,  all  the 
forgotten  incidents,  all  the  unrealised  influences  and  all  the 
happenings  she  had  not  understood,  pertaining  to  herself, 
to  her  family,  to  her  friends,  her  lovers,  her  acquaintances, 
everybody.  It  was  as  if  she  drew  a  glittering  rope  of  knowl- 
edge out  of  the  sea  of  darkness,  drew  and  drew  and  drew  it 
out  of  the  fathomless  depths  of  the  past,  and  still  it  did  not 
come  to  an  end,  there  was  no  end  to  it,  she  must  haul  and 
haul  at  the  rope  of  glittering  consciousness,  pull  it  out  phos- 
phorescent from  the  endless  depths  of  the  unconsciousness, 
till  she  was  weary,  aching,  exhausted,  and  fit  to  break,  and 
yet  she  had  not  done. 

Ah,  if  only  she  might  wake  him!  She  turned  uneasily. 
When  could  she  rouse  him  and  send  him  away?  When  could 
she  disturb  him?  And  she  relapsed  into  her  activity  of  auto- 
matic consciousness,  that  would  never  end. 

But  the  time  was  drawing  near  when  she  could  wake  him. 
It  was  like  a  release.  The  clock  had  struck  four,  outside  in 
the  night.  Thank  God  the  night  had  passed  almost  away. 
At  five  he  must  go,  and  she  would  be  released.  Then  she  could 
relax  and  fill  her  own  place.  Now  she  was  driven  up  against 
his  perfect  sleeping  motion  like  a  knife  white-hot  on  a  grind- 
stone. There  was  something  monstrous  about  him,  about  his 
juxtaposition  against  her. 

The  last  hour  was  the  longest.  And  yet,  at  last  it  passed. 
Her  heart  leapt  with  relief — yes,  there  was  the  slow,  strong 
stroke  of  the  church  clock — at  last,  after  this  night  of  eter- 
nity.     She  waited  to  catch  each  slow,  fatal  reverberation. 

"Three four five!"    There,  it  was  finished.      A 

weight  rolled  off  her. 

She  raised  herself,  leaned  over  him  tenderly,  and  kissed 
him.  She  was  sad  to  wake  him.  After  a  few  moments, 
she  kissed  him  again.      But  he  did  not  stir.      The  darling, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  387 

he  was  so  deep  in  sleep!  What  a  shame  to  take  him  out  of  it. 
She  let  him  he  a  little  longer.  But  he  must  go — he  must 
really  go. 

With  full  over-tenderness  she  took  his  face  between  her 
hands,  and  kissed  his  eyes.  The  eyes  opened,  he  remained 
motionless,  looking  at  her.  Her  heart  stood  still.  To  hide 
her  face  from  his  dreadful  opened  eyes,  in  the  darkness,  she 
bent  down  and  kissed  him,  whispering: 

"You  must  go,  my  love." 

But  she  was  sick  with  terror,  sick. 

He  put  his  arms  round  her.     Her  heart  sank. 

"But  you  must  go,  my  love.     It's  late." 

"What  time  is  it?"   he  said. 

Strange,  his  man's  voice.  She  quivered.  It  was  an 
intolerable  oppression  to  her. 

"Past  five  o'clock,"  she  said. 

But  he  only  closed  his  arms  round  her  again.  Her  heart 
cried  within  her  in  torture.     She  disengaged  herself  firmly. 

"You  really  must  go,"  she  said. 

"Not  for  a  minute,"   he  said. 

She  lay  still,  nestling  against  him,  but  unyielding. 

"Not  for  a  minute,"  he  repeated,  clasping  her  closer. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  unyielding.  "I'm  afraid  if  you  stay  any 
longer." 

There  was  a  certain  coldness  in  her  voice  that  made  him 
release  her,  and  she  broke  away,  rose  and  lit  the  candle. 
That  then  was  the  end. 

He  got  up.  He  was  warm  and  full  of  life  and  desire. 
Yet  he  felt  a  little  bit  ashamed,  humiliated,  putting  on  his 
clothes  before  her,  in  the  candle-light.  For  he  felt  revealed, 
exposed  to  her,  at  a  time  when  she  was  in  some  way  against 
him.  It  was  all  very  difficult  to  understand.  He  dressed 
himself  quickly,  without  collar  or  tie.  Still  he  felt  full  and 
complete,  perfected. — She  thought  it  humiliating  to  see  a 
man  dressing:  the  ridiculous  shirt,  the  ridiculous  trousers 
and  braces.     But  again  an  idea  saved  her. 

"It  is  like  a  workman  getting  up  to  go  to  work,"  thought 
Gudrun.  "And  I  am  like  a  workman's  wife."  But  an  ache 
like  nausea  was  upon  her:   a  nausea  of  him. 


388  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

He  pushed  his  collar  and  tie  into  his  overcoat  pocket. 
Then  he  sat  down  and  pulled  on  his  boots.  They  were  sodden, 
as  were  his  socks  and  trouser-bottoms.  But  he  himself  was 
quick  and  warm. 

"Perhaps  you  ought  to  have  put  your  boots  on  downstairs," 
she  said. 

At  once,  without  answering,  he  pulled  them  off  again,  and 
stood  holding  them  in  his  hand.  She  had  thrust  her  feet  into 
slippers,  and  flung  a  loose  robe  round  her.  She  was  ready. 
She  looked  at  him  as  he  stood  waiting,  his  black  coat  buttoned 
to  the  chin,  his  cap  pulled  down,  his  boots  in  his  hand.  And 
the  passionate  almost  hateful  fascination  revived  in  her  for 
a  moment.  It  was  not  exhausted.  His  face  was  so  warm- 
looking,  wide-eyed  and  full  of  newness,  so  perfect.  She  felt 
old,  old.  She  went  to  him  heavily,  to  be  kissed.  He  kissed 
her  quickly.  She  wished  his  warm,  expressionless  beauty 
did  not  so  fatally  put  a  spell  on  her,  compel  her  and  subjugate 
her.  It  was  a  burden  upon  her,  that  she  resented  but  could 
not  escape.  Yet  when  she  looked  at  his  straight  man's  brows, 
and  at  his  rather  small,  well-shaped  nose,  and  at  his  blue, 
indifferent  eyes,  she  knew  her  passion  for  him  was  not  yet 
satisfied,  perhaps  never  could  be  satisfied.  Only  now  she 
was  weary,  with  an  ache  like  nausea.      She  wanted  him  gone. 

They  went  downstairs  quickly.  It  seemed  they  made  a 
prodigious  noise.  He  followed  her  as,  wrapped  in  her  vivid 
green  wrap,  she  preceded  him  with  the  light.  She  suffered 
badly  with  fear,  lest  her  people  should  be  roused.  He  hardly 
cared.  He  did  not  care  now  who  knew. — And  she  hated 
this  in  him.  One  must  be  cautious.  One  must  preserve 
oneself. 

She  led  the  way  to  the  kitchen.  It  was  neat  and  tidy,  as 
the  woman  had  left  it.  He  looked  up  at  the  clock — twenty 
minutes  past  five!  Then  he  sat  down  on  a  chair  to  put  on  his 
boots.  She  waited,  watching  his  every  movement.  She 
wanted  it  to  be  over,  it  was  a  great  nervous  strain  on  her. 

He  stood  up — she  unbolted  the  back  door,  and  looked  out. 
A  cold,  raw  light,  not  yet  dawn,  with  a  piece  of  a  moon  in  the 
vague  sky.     She  was  glad  she  need  not  go  out. 

"Good-bye  then,"  he  murmuredt 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  389 

"I'll  come  to  the  gate,"  she  said. 

And  again  she  hurried  on  in  front,  to  warn  him  of  the 
steps.  And  at  the  gate,  once  more  she  stood  on  the  step 
whilst  he  stood  below  her. 

"Good-bye,"  she  whispered. 

He  kissed  her  dutifully,  and  turned  away. 

She  suffered  torments  hearing  his  firm  tread  going  so 
distinctly  down  the  road.  Ah,  the  insensitiveness  of  that 
firm  tread! 

She  closed  the  gate,  and  crept  quickly  and  noiselessly 
back  to  bed.  When  she  was  in  her  room,  and  the  door  closed, 
and  all  safe,  she  breathed  freely,  and  a  great  weight  fell  off  her. 
She  nestled  down  in  bed,  in  the  groove  his  body  had  made, 
in  the  warmth  he  had  left.  And  excited,  worn-out,  yet  still 
satisfied,  she  fell  soon  into  a  deep,  heavy  sleep. 

Gerald  walked  quickly  through  the  raw  darkness  of  the 
coming  dawn.  He  met  nobody.  His  mind  was  beautifully 
still  and  thoughtless,  like  a  still  pool,  and  his  body  full  and 
warm  and  rich.  He  went  quickly  along  towards  Shortlands, 
in  a  grateful  self-sufficiency. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE  Brangwen  family  was  going  to  move  from  Beldover. 
It  was  necessary  now  for  the  father  to  be  in  town. 

Birkin  had  taken  out  a  marriage  license,  yet  Ursula 
deferred  from  day  to  day.  She  would  not  fix  any  definite 
time — she  still  wavered.  Her  month's  notice  to  leave  the 
Grammar  School  was  in  its  third  week.  Christmas  was  not 
far  off. 

Gerald  waited  for  the  Ursula-Birkin  marriage.      It  was 
something  crucial  to  him. 

"Shall  we  make  it  a  double-barrelled  affair?"    he  said  to 
Birkin  one  day. 

"Who  for  the  second  shot?"   asked  Birkin. 

"Gudrun  and  me,"  said  Gerald,  the  venturesome  twinkle 
in  his  eyes. 

Birkin  looked  at  him  steadily,  as  if  somewhat  taken  aback. 

"Serious — or  joking?"   he  asked. 

"Oh,  serious. — Shall  I?   Shall  Gudrun  and  I  rush  in  along 
with  you?" 

"Do  by  all  means,"  said  Birkin.      "I  didn't  know  you'd 
got  that  length." 

"What  length?"    said  Gerald,  looking  at  the  other  man, 
and  laughing. 

"Oh  yes,  we've  gone  all  the  lengths." 

"There  remains  to  put  it  on  a  broad  social  basis,  and  to 
achieve  a  high  moral  purpose,"  said  Birkin. 

"Something  like  that:    the  length  and  breadth  and  height 
of  it,"  replied  Gerald,  smiling. 

"Oh  well,"  said  Birkin,  "it's  a  very  admirable  step  to  take, 
I  should  say." 

Gerald  looked  at  him  closely. 

"Why  aren't  you  enthusiastic?"    he  asked.      "I  thought 
you  were  such  dead  nuts  on  marriage." 

Birkin  lifted  his  shoulders. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  391 

"One  might  as  well  be  dead  nuts  on  noses. — There  are  all 
sorts  of  noses,  snub  and  otherwise. — " 

Gerald  laughed. 

"And  all  sorts  of  marriage,  also  snub  and  otherwise?" 
he  said. 

"That's  it." 

"And  you  think  if  I  marry,  it  will  be  snub?"  asked  Gerald 
quizzically,  his  head  a  little  on  one  side. 

Birkin  laughed  quickly. 

"How  do  I  know  what  it  will  be!"  he  said.  "Don't 
lambaste  me  with  my  own  parallels — " 

Gerald  pondered  a  while. 

"But  I  should  like  to  know  your  opinion,  exactly,"  he  said. 

"On  your  marriage? — or  marrying? — Why  should  you 
want  my  opinion?  I've  got  no  opinions.  I'm  not  interested 
in  legal  marriage,  one  way  or  another. — It's  a  mere  question 
of  convenience." 

Still  Gerald  watched  him  closely. 

"More  than  that,  I  think,"  he  said  seriously.  "However 
you  may  be  bored  by  the  ethics  of  marriage,  yet  really  to 
marry,  in  one's  own  personal  case,  is  something  critical, 
final — " 

"You  mean  there  is  something  final  in  going  to  the  registrar 
with  a  woman?" 

"If  you're  coming  back  with  her,  I  do,"  said  Gerald. 
"It  is  in  some  way  irrevocable." 

"Yes,  I  agree,"  said  Birkin. 

"No  matter  how  one  regards  legal  marriage,  yet  to  enter 
into  the  married  state,  in  one's  own  personal  instance,  is 
final — " 

"I  believe  it  is,"  said  Birkin,  "somewhere." 

"The  question  remains  then,  should  one  do  it,"  said  Gerald. 

Birkin  watched  him  narrowly,  with  amused  eyes. 

"You  are  like  Lord  Bacon,  Gerald,"  he  said.  "You  argue 
it  like  a  lawyer — or  like  Hamlet's  to-be-or-not-to-be. — If  I 
were  you  I  would  not  marry :  but  ask  Gudrun,  not  me.  You're 
not  marrying  me,  are  you?" 

Gerald  did  not  heed  the  latter  part  of  this  speech. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "one  must  consider  it  coldly. — It  is  some- 


392  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

thing  critical. — One  comes  to  the  point  where  one  must  take 
a  step  in  one  direction  or  another.  And  marriage  is  one 
direction — " 

"And  what  is  the  other?"   asked  Birkin  quickly. 

Gerald  looked  up  at  him  with  hot,  strangely-conscious 
eyes,  that  the  other  man  could  not  understand. 

"I  can't  say,"  he  replied.  "If  I  knew  that — ."  He 
moved  uneasily  on  his  feet,  and  did  not  finish. 

"You  mean  if  you  knew  the  alternative?"  asked  Birkin. 
"And  since  you  don't  know  it,  marriage  is  a  pis  aller." 

Gerald  looked  up  at  Birkin  with  the  same  hot,  constrained 
eyes. 

"One  does  have  the  feeling  that  marriage  is  a  pis  aller," 
he  admitted. 

"Then  don't  do  it,"  said  Birkin.  "I  tell  you,"  he  went 
on,  the  same  as  I've  said  before,  marriage  in  the  old  sense 
seems  to  me  repulsive.  Egoism  a  deux  is  nothing  to  it.  It's 
a  sort  of  tacit  hunting  in  couples:  the  world  all  in  couples, 
each  couple  in  its  own  little  house,  watching  its  own  little 
interests,  and  stewing  in  its  own  little  privacy — it's  the  most 
repulsive  thing  on  earth." 

"I  quite  agree,"  said  Gerald.  "There's  something  inferior 
about  it.      But  as  I  say,  what's  the  alternative." 

"One  should  avoid  this  home  instinct.  It's  not  an  instinct, 
it's  a  habit  of  cowardliness.      One  should  never  have  a  home." 

"I  agree  really,"  said  Gerald.     "But  there's  no  alternative." 

"We've  got  to  find  one. — I  do  believe  in  a  permanent 
union  between  a  man  and  a  woman.  Chopping  about  is 
merely  an  exhaustive  process. — But  a  permanent  relation 
between  a  man  and  a  woman  isn't  the  last  word — it  certainly 
isn't." 

"Quite,"  said  Gerald. 

"In  fact,"  said  Birkin,  because  the  relation  between  man 
and  woman  is  made  the  supreme  and  exclusive  relationship, 
that's  where  all  the  tightness  and  meanness  and  insufficiency 
comes  in." 

"Yes,  I  believe  you,"  said  Gerald. 

"You've  got  to  take  down  the  love-and-marriage  ideal 
from  its  pedestal.      We  want  something  broader. — I  believe 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  393 

in  the  additional  perfect  relationship  between  man  and  man — 
additional  to  marriage." 

"I  can  never  see  how  they  can  be  the  same,"  said  Gerald. 

"Not  the  same — but  equally  important,  equally  creative, 
equally  sacred,  if  you  like." 

Gerald  moved  uneasily. — "You  know,  I  can't  feel  that," 
said  he.  "Surely  there  can  never  be  anything  as  strong 
between  man  and  man  as  sex  love  is  between  man  and  woman. 
Nature  doesn't  provide  the  basis." 

"Well,  of  course,  I  think  she  does.  And  I  don't  think  we 
shall  ever  be  happy  till  we  establish  ourselves  on  this  basis. 
You've  got  to  get  rid  of  the  exclusiieness  of  married  love. 
And  you've  got  to  admit  the  unadmitted  love  of  man  for  man. 
It  makes  for  a  greater  freedom  for  everybody,  a  greater 
power  of  individuality  both  in  men  and  women." 

"I  know,"  said  Gerald,  "you  believe  something  like  that. 
Only  I  can't  feel  it,  you  see."  He  put  his  hand  on  Birkin's 
arm,  with  a  sort  of  deprecating  affection.  And  he  smiled 
as  if  triumphantly. 

He  was  ready  to  be  doomed.  Marriage  was  like  a  doom 
to  him.  He  was  willing  to  condemn  himself  in  marriage,  to 
become  like  a  convict  condemned  to  the  mines  of  the  under- 
world, living  no  life  in  the  sun,  but  having  a  dreadful  subter- 
ranean activity.  He  was  willing  to  accept  this.  And  marriage 
was  the  seal  of  his  condemnation.  He  was  willing  to  be  sealed 
thus  in  the  underworld,  like  a  soul  damned  but  living  forever  in 
damnation. — But  he  would  not  make  any  pure  relationship 
with  any  other  soul.  He  could  not.  Marriage  was  not  the 
committing  of  himself  into  a  relationship  with  Gudrun.  It 
was  a  committing  of  himself  in  acceptance  of  the  established 
world,  he  would  accept  the  established  order,  in  which  he 
did  not  livingly  believe,  and  then  he  would  retreat  to  the 
underworld  for  his  life.     This  he  would  do. 

The  other  way  was  to  accept  Rupert's  offer  of  love,  to 
enter  into  the  bond  of  pure  trust  and  love  with  the  other  man, 
and  then  subsequently  with  the  woman.  If  he  pledged  him- 
self with  the  man  he  would  later  be  able  to  pledge  himself 
with  the  woman:  not  merely  in  legal  marriage,  but  in  absolute, 
mystic  marriage. 


394  WOMEN   LN  LOVE 

Yet  he  could  not  accept  the  offer.  There  was  a  numbness 
upon  him,  a  numbness  either  of  unborn,  absent  volition,  or 
of  atrophy.  Perhaps  it  was  the  absence  of  volition.  For 
he  was  strangely  elated  at  Rupert's  offer.  Yet  he  was  still 
more  glad  to  reject  it,  not  to  be  committed. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THERE  was  a  jumble  market  every  Monday  afternoon 
in  the  old  market-place  in  town.  Ursula  and  Birkin 
strayed  down  there  one  afternoon.  They  had  been 
talking  of  furniture,  and  they  wanted  to  see  if  there  was  any 
fragment  they  would  like  to  buy,  amid  the  heaps  of  rubbish 
collected  on  the  cobble-stones. 

The  old  market  square  was  not  very  large,  a  mere  bare 
patch  of  granite  setts,  usually  with  a  few  fruit-stalls,  under  a 
wall.  It  was  in  a  poor  quarter  of  the  town.  Meagre  houses 
stood  down  one  side,  there  was  a  hosiery  factory,  a  great 
blank  with  myriad  oblong  windows,  at  the  end,  a  street  of 
little  shops  with  flagstone  pavement  down  the  other  side, 
and,  for  a  crowning  monument,  the  public  baths,  of  new  red 
brick,  with  a  clock-tower.  The  people  who  moved  about 
seemed  stumpy  and  sordid,  the  air  seemed  to  smell  rather 
dirty,  there  was  a  sense  of  many  mean  streets  ramifying  off 
into  warrens  of  meanness.  Now  and  again  a  great  chocolate- 
and-yellow  tramcar  ground  round  a  difficult  bend  under  the 
hosiery  factory. 

Ursula  was  superficially  thrilled  when  she  found  herself 
out  among  the  common  people,  in  the  jumbled  place  piled 
with  old  bedding,  heaps  of  old  iron,  shabby  crockery  in  pale 
lots,  muffled  lots  of  unthinkable  clothing.  She  and  Birkin 
went  unwillingly  down  the  narrow  aisle  between  the  rusty 
wares.     He  was  looking  at  the  goods,  she  at  the  people. 

She  excitedly  watched  a  young  woman,  who  was  going 
to  have  a  baby,  and  who  was  turning  over  a  mattress  and 
making  a  young  man,  down-at-heel  and  dejected,  feel  it  also. 
So  secretive  and  active  and  anxious  the  young  woman  seemed, 
so  reluctant,  slinking,  the  young  man.  He  was  going  to 
marry  her  because  she  was  having  a  child. 

When  they  had  felt  the  mattress,  the  young  woman  asked 
the  old  man  seated  on  a  stool  among  his  wares,  how  much  it 
was.      He  told  her,  and  she  turned  to  the  young  man.      The 

395 


396  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

latter  was  ashamed,  and  self-conscious.  He  turned  his  face 
away,  though  he  left  his  body  standing  there,  and  muttered 
aside.  And  again  the  woman  anxiously  and  actively  fingered 
the  mattress  and  added  up  in  her  mind  and  bargained  with 
the  old,  unclean  man.  All  the  while,  the  young  man  stood 
by,  shamefaced  and  down-at-heel,  submitting. 

"Look,"  said  Birkin,  "there  is  a  pretty  chair." 

"Charming!"   cried  Ursula.     "Oh,  charming." 

It  was  an  arm-chair  of  simple  wood,  probably  birch,  but 
of  such  fine  delicacy  of  grace,  standing  there  on  the  sordid 
stones,  it  almost  brought  tears  to  the  eyes.  It  was  square  in 
shape,  of  the  purest,  slender  lines,  and  four  short  lines  of  wood 
in  the  back,  that  reminded  Ursula  of  harpstrings. 

"It  was  once,"  said  Birkin,  "gilded — and  it  had  a  cane 
seat.  Somebody  has  nailed  this  wooden  seat  in.  Look, 
here  is  a  trifle  of  the  red  that  underlay  the  gilt.  The  rest  is 
all  black,  except  where  the  wood  is  worn  pure  and  glossy. 
It  is  the  fine  unity  of  the  lines  that  is  so  attractive.  Look, 
how  they  run  and  meet  and  counteract.  But  of  course  the 
wooden  seat  is  wrong — it  destroys  the  perfect  lightness  and 
unity  in  tension  the  cane  gave.      I  like  it  though — " 

"Ah  yes,"  said  Ursula,  "so  do  I." 

"How  much  is  it?"   Birkin  asked  the  man. 

"Ten  shillings." 

"And  you  will  send  it — ?" 

It  was  bought. 

"So  beautiful,  so  pure!"  Birkin  said.  "It  almost  breaks 
my  heart."  They  walked  along  between  the  heaps  of  rubbish. 
"My  beloved  country — it  had  something  to  express  even  when 
it  made  that  chair." 

"And  hasn't  it  now?"  asked  Ursula.  She  was  always 
angry  when  he  took  this  tone. 

"No,  it  hasn't.  When  I  see  that  clear,  beautiful  chair, 
and  I  think  of  England,  even  Jane  Austen's  England — it  had 
living  thoughts  to  unfold  even  then,  and  pure  happiness  in 
unfolding  them.  And  now,  we  can  only  fish  among  the  rub- 
bish heaps  for  the  remnants  of  their  old  expression.  There 
is  no  production  in  us  now,  only  sordid  and  foul  mechanical- 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  397 

"It  isn't  true,"  cried  Ursula.  "Why  must  you  always 
praise  the  past,  at  the  expense  of  the  present?  Really,  I  don't 
think  so  much  of  Jane  Austen's  England.  It  was  material- 
istic enough,  if  you  like — " 

"It  could  afford  to  be  materialistic,"  said  Birkin,  "because 
it  had  the  power  to  be  something  other — which  we  haven't. 
We  are  materialistic  because  we  haven't  the  power  to  be  any- 
thing else — try  as  we  may,  we  can't  bring  off  anything  but 
materialism;   mechanism,  the  very  soul  of  materialsim." 

Ursula  was  subdued  into  angry  silence.  She  did  not  heed 
what  he  said.      She  was  rebelling  against  something  else. 

"And  I  hate  your  past.  I'm  sick  of  it,"  she  cried.  "I 
believe  I  even  hate  that  old  chair,  though  it  is  beautiful. 
It  isn't  my  sort  of  beauty.  I  wish  it  had  been  smashed  up 
when  its  day  was  over,  not  left  to  preach  the  beloved  past 
to  us.      I'm  sick  of  the  beloved  past." 

"Not  so  sick  as  I  am  of  the  accursed  present,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  just  the  same.  I  hate  the  present — but  I  don't 
want  the  past  to  take  its  place — I  don't  want  that  old  chair." 

He  was  rather  angry  for  a  moment.  Then  he  looked  at 
the  sky  shining  beyond  the  tower  of  the  public  baths,  and  he 
seemed  to  get  over  it  all.     He  laughed. 

"All  right,"  he  said,  "then  let  us  not  have  it.  I'm  sick 
of  it  all,  too.  At  any  rate  one  can't  go  on  living  on  the  old 
bones  of  beauty." 

"One  can't,"  she  cried.     "I  don't  want  old  things." 

"The  truth  is,  we  don't  want  things  at  all,"  he  replied. 
"The  thought  of  a  house  and  furniture  of  my  own  is  hateful 
to  me." 

This  startled  her  for  a  moment.     Then  she  replied: 

"So  it  is  to  me.     But  one  must  live  somewhere." 

"Not  somewhere — anywhere,"  he  said.  "One  should 
just  live  anywhere — not  have  a  definite  place.  I  don't  want 
a  definite  place. — As  soon  as  you  get  a  room,  and  it  is  complete, 
you  want  to  run  from  it. — Now  my  rooms  at  the  Mill  are 
quite  complete,  I  want  them  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  It  is 
a  horrible  tyranny  of  a  fixed  milieu,  where  each  piece  of  furni- 
ture is  a  commandment-stone." 

She  clung  to  his  arm  as  they  walked  away  from  the  market. 


398  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"But  what  are  we  going  to  do?"  she  said.  "We  must  live 
somehow.  And  I  do  want  some  beauty  in  my  surroundings. 
I  want  a  sort  of  natural  grandeur  even,  splendour." 

"You'll  never  get  it  in  houses  and  furniture — or  even 
clothes.  Houses  and  furniture  and  clothes,  they  are  all 
terms  of  an  old  base  world,  a  detestable  society  of  man.  And 
if  you  have  a  Tudor  house  and  old,  beautiful  furniture,  it  is 
only  the  past  perpetuated  on  top  of  you,  horrible. — And  if 
you  have  a  perfect  modern  house  done  for  you  by  Poiret,  it 
is  something  else  perpetuated  on  top  of  you.  It  is  all  horrible. 
It  is  all  possessions,  possessions,  bullying  you  and  turning 
you  into  a  generalisation. — You  have  to  be  like  Rodin, 
Michael  Angelo,  and  leave  a  piece  of  raw  rock  unfinished  to 
your  figure.  You  must  leave  your  surroundings  sketchy, 
unfinished,  so  that  you  are  never  contained,  never  confined, 
never  dominated  from  the  outside." 

She  stood  in  the  street  contemplating. 

"And  we  are  never  to  have  a  complete  place  of  our  own — 
never  a  home?"   she  said. 

"Pray  God,  in  this  world,  no,"  he  answered. 

"But  there's  only  this  world,"  she  objected. 

He  spread  out  his  hands  with  a  gesture  of  indifference. 

"Meanwhile,  then,  we'll  avoid  having  things  of  our  own," 
he  said. 

"But  you've  just  bought  a  chair,"   she  said. 

"I  can  tell  the  man  I  don't  want  it,"  he  replied. 

She  pondered  again.  Then  a  queer  little  movement 
twitched  her  face. 

"No,"  she  said,  "we  don't  want  it.     I'm  sick  of  old  things." 

"New  ones  as  well,"  he  said. 

They  retraced  their  steps. 

There — in  front  of  some  furniture,  stood  the  young  couple, 
the  woman  who  was  going  to  have  a  baby,  and  the  narrow- 
faced  youth.  She  was  fair,  rather  short,  stout.  He  was  of 
medium  height,  attractively  built.  His  dark  hair  fell  side- 
ways over  his  brow,  from  under  his  cap,  he  stood  strangely 
aloof,  like  one  of  the  damned. 

"Let  us  give  it  to  them,"  whispered  Ursula.  "Look  they 
are  getting  a  home  together." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  399 

"/  won't  aid  and  abet  them  in  it,"  he  said  petulantly, 
instantly  sympathising  with  the  aloof,  furtive  youth,  against 
the  active,  procreant  female. 

"Oh  yes,"  cried  Ursula.     "It's  right  for  them — there's 
nothing  else  for  them." 

"Very  well,"  said  Birkin,  "you  offer  it  to  them.  I'll 
watch." 

Ursula  went  rather  nervously  to  the  young  couple,  who 
were  discussing  an  iron  washstand — or  rather,  the  man  was 
glancing  furtively  and  wonderingly,  like  a  prisoner,  at  the 
abominable  article,  whilst  the  woman  was  arguing. 

"We  bought  a  chair,"  said  Ursula,  "and  we  don't  want  it. 
Would  you  have  it?   We  should  be  glad  if  you  would." 

The  young  couple  looked  round  on  her,  not  believing  that 
she  could  be  addressing  them. 

"Would  you  care  for  it?"  repeated  Ursula.  "It's  really 
very  pretty — but — but — "  she  smiled  rather  dazzlingly. 

The  young  couple  only  stared  at  her,  and  looked  signifi- 
cantly at  each  other,  to  know  what  to  do.  And  the  man 
curiously  obliterated  himself,  as  if  he  could  make  himself 
invisible,  as  a  rat  can. 

"We  wanted  to  give  it  to  you,"  explained  Ursula,  now 
overcome  with  confusion  and  dread  of  them.  She  was  at- 
tracted by  the  young  man.  He  was  a  still,  mindless  creature, 
hardly  a  man  at  all,  a  creature  that  the  towns  have  produced, 
strangely  pure-bred  and  fine  in  one  sense,  furtive,  quick, 
subtle.  His  lashes  were  dark  and  long  and  fine  over  his 
eyes,  that  had  no  mind  in  them,  only  a  dreadful  kind  of  sub- 
ject, inward  consciousness,  glazed  and  dark.  His  dark  brows 
and  all  his  lines,  were  finely  drawn.  He  would  be  a  dreadful, 
but  wonderful  lover  to  a  woman,  so  marvellously  contributed. 
His  legs  would  be  marvellously  subtle  and  alive,  under  the 
shapeless  trousers,  he  had  some  of  the  fineness  and  stillness 
and  silkiness  of  a  dark-eyed,  silent  rat. 

Ursula  had  apprehended  him  with  a  fine  frisson  of  attrac- 
tion. The  full-built  woman  was  staring  offensively.  Again 
Ursula  forgot  him. 

"Won't  you  have  the  chair?"  she  said. 

The  man  looked  at  her  with  a  sideways  look  of  appreciation, 


400  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

yet  far-off,  almost  insolent.  The  woman  drew  herself  up. 
There  was  a  certain  coster-monger  richness  about  her.  She 
did  not  know  what  Ursula  was  after,  she  was  on  her  guard, 
hostile.  Birkin  approached,  smiling  wickedly  at  seeing 
Ursula  so  nonplussed  and  frightened. 

"What's  the  matter?"  he  said,  smiling.  His  eyelids  had 
dropped  slightly,  there  was  about  him  the  same  suggestive, 
low  secrecy  that  was  in  the  bearing  of  the  two  city  creatures. — 
The  man  jerked  his  head  a  little  on  one  side,  indicating  Ursula, 
and  said,  with  curious  amiable,  jeering  warmth: 

"What  she  warnt? — eh — "    An  odd  smile  writhed  his  lips. 

Birkin  looked  at  him  from  under  his  slack,  leering-drooping 
eyelids. 

"To  give  you  a  chair — that — with  the  label  on  it,"  he  said, 
pointing. 

The  man  looked  at  the  object  indicated.  There  was  a 
curious  freemasonry  in  male  outlawed  understanding  between 
the  two  men. 

"What's  she  warnt  to  give  it  us  for,  guvnor,"  he  replied, 
in  a  tone  of  free  intimacy  that  insulted  Ursula. 

"Thought  you'd  like  it — it's  a  pretty  chair.  We  bought  it 
and  don't  want  it.  No  need  for  you  to  have  it,  don't  be 
frightened,"  said  Birkin,  with  a  wry  smile. 

The  man  glanced  up  at  him,  half  inimical,  half  recognising. 

"Why  don't  you  want  it  for  yourselves,  if  you've  just 
bought  it?"  asked  the  woman  insolently.  "'Taint  good 
enough  for  you,  now  you've  had  a  look  at  it. — Frightened 
it's  got  something  in  it,  I'll  bet." 

She  was  looking  at  Ursula,  admiringly,  but  with  some 
contempt. 

"I'd  never  thought  of  that,"  said  Birkin.  "But  no,  the 
wood's  too  thin  everywhere." 

"You  see,"  said  Ursula,  her  face  luminous  and  pleased. 
"We  are  just  going  to  get  married,  and  we  thought  we'd  buy 
things.  Then  we  decided,  just  now,  that  we  wouldn't  have 
furniture,  we'd  go  abroad." 

The  full-built,  slightly  blowsy  city  girl  looked  at  the  fine 
face  of  the  other  woman,  with  appreciation.  They  appreci  ated 
each  other.      The  youth  stood  aside,  his  face  expressionless 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  401 

and  timeless,  the  thin  line  of  the  black  moustache  drawn 
strangely  suggestive  over  his  rather  wide,  closed  mouth. 
He  was  impassive,  abstract,  like  some  dark  suggestive  pres- 
ence, a  gutter-presence. 

"It's  all  right  to  be  some  folks,"  said  the  city  girl,  turning 
to  her  own  young  man.  He  did  not  look  at  her,  but  he  smiled 
with  the  lower  part  of  his  face,  putting  his  head  aside  in  an 
odd  gesture  of  assent.  His  eyes  were  unchanging,  glazed 
with  darkness. 

"Cawsts  something  to  chynge  your  mind,"  he  said,  in  an 
incredibly  low  accent. 

"Only  ten  shillings  this  time,"  said  Birkin. 

The  man  looked  up  at  him  with  a  grimace  of  a  smile, 
furtive,  unsure. 

"Cheap  at  'arf  a  quid,  guvnor,"  he  said.  "Not  like  getting 
divawced." 

"We're  not  married  yet,"  said  Birkin. 

"No,  no  more  aren't  we,"  said  the  young  woman  loudly. 
"But  we  shall  be,  a  Saturday." 

Again  she  looked  at  the  young  man  with  a  determined, 
protective  look,  at  once  overbearing  and  very  gentle.  He 
grinned  sicklily,  turning  away  his  head.  She  had  got  his 
manhood,  but  Lord,  what  did  he  care!  He  had  a  strange 
furtive  pride  and  slinking  singleness. 

"Good  luck  to  you,"  said  Birkin. 

"Same  to  you,"  said  the  young  woman.  Then,  rather 
tentatively:   "When's  yours  coming  off,  then?" 

Birkin  looked  round  at  Ursula. 

"It's  for  the  lady  to  say,"  he  replied.  "We  go  to  the 
registrar  the  moment  she's  ready." 

Ursula  laughed,  covered  with  confusion  and  bewilderment. 

"No  'urry,"  said  the  young  man,  grinning  suggestive. 

"Oh,  don't  break  your  neck  to  get  there,"  said  the  young 
woman.  "'Slike  when  you're  dead — you're  a  long  time 
married." 

The  young  man  turned  aside  as  if  this  hit  him. 

"The  longer  the  better,  let  us  hope,"  said  Birkin. 

"That's  it,  guvnor,"  said  the  young  man  admiringly. 
"Enjoy  it  while  it  larsts — niver  whip  a  dead  donkey." 


402  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Only  when  he's  shamming  dead,"  said  the  young  woman, 
looking  at  her  young  man  with  caressive  tenderness  of 
authority. 

"Aw,  there's  a  difference,"  he  said  satirically. 

"What  about  the  chair?"   said  Birkin. 

"Yes,  all  right,"  said  the  woman. 

They  trailed  off  to  the  dealer,  the  handsome  but  abject 
young  fellow  hanging  a  little  aside. 

"That's  it,"  said  Birkin.  "Will  you  take  it  with  you,  or 
have  the  address  altered." 

"Oh,  Fred  can  carry  it.  Make  him  do  what  he  can  for 
the  dear  old  'ome." 

"Mike  use  of  'im,"  said  Fred,  grimly  humorous,  as  he  took 
the  chair  from  the  dealer.  His  movements  were  graceful, 
yet  curiously  abject,  slinking. 

"'Ere's  mother's  cosy  chair,"  he  said.  "Warnts  a  cushion." 
And  he  stood  it  down  on  the  market  stones. 

"Don't  you  think  it's  pretty?"   laughed  Ursula. 

"Oh,  I  do,"  said  the  young  woman. 

"'Ave  a  sit  in  it,  you'll  wish  you'd  kept  it,"  said  the  young 
man. 

Ursula  promptly  sat  down  in  the  middle  of  the  market- 
place. 

"Awfully  comfortable,"  she  said.  "But  rather  hard. — 
You  try  it."  She  invited  the  young  man  to  a  seat.  But  he 
turned  uncouthly,  awkwardly  aside,  glancing  up  at  her  with 
quick  bright  eyes,  oddly  suggestive,  like  a  quick,  live  rat. 

"Don't  spoil  him,"  said  the  young  woman.  "He's  not 
used  to  arm-chairs,  'e  isn't." 

The  young  man  turned  away,  and  said,  with  averted  grin : 

"Only  warnts  legs  on  'is." 

The  four  parted.     The  young  woman  thanked  them. 

"Thank  you  for  the  chair — it'll  last  till  it  gives  way." 

"Keep  it  for  an  ornyment,"  said  the  young  man. 

"Good  afternoon — good  afternoon,"  said  Ursula  and  Birkin. 

"Goo' — luck  to  you,"  said  the  young  man,  glancing  and 
avoiding  Birkin's  eyes,  as  he  turned  aside  his  head. 

The  two  couples  went  asunder,  Ursula  clinging  to  Birkin's 
arm.      When  they  had  gone  some  distance,  she  glanced  back 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  403 

and  saw  the  young  man  going  beside  the  full,  easy  young 
woman.  His  trousers  sank  over  his  heels,  he  moved  with  a 
sort  of  slinking  evasion,  more  crushed  with  odd  self-conscious- 
ness now  he  had  the  slim  old  arm-chair  to  carry,  his  arm  over 
the  back,  the  four  fine,  square  tapering  legs  swaying  perilously 
near  the  granite  setts  of  the  pavement.  And  yet  he  was 
somewhere  indomitable  and  separate,  like  a  quick,  vital  rat. 
He  had  a  queer,  subterranean  beauty,  repulsive  too. 

"How  strange  they  are!"   said  Ursula. 

"Children  of  men,"  he  said.  "They  remind  me  of  Jesus': 
The  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth.'  " 

"But  they  aren't  the  meek,"  said  Ursula. 

"Yes,  I  don't  know  why,  but  they  are,"  he  replied. 

They  waited  for  the  tramcar.  Ursula  sat  on  top  and  looked 
out  on  the  town.  The  dusk  was  just  dimming  the  hollows  of 
crowded  houses. 

"And  are  they  going  to  inherit  the  earth?"   she  said. 

"Yes — they." 

"Then  what  are  we  going  to  do?"  she  asked.  "We're 
not  like  them — are  we? — We're  not  the  meek?" 

"No. — We've  got  to  live  in  the  chinks  they  leave  us." 

"How  horrible!"  cried  Ursula.  "I  don't  want  to  live  in 
chinks." 

"Don't  worry,"  he  said.  "They  are  the  children  of  men, 
they  like  market-places  and  street-corners  best.  That  leaves 
plenty  of  chinks." 

"All  the  world,"  she  said. 

"Ah  no — but  some  room." 

The  tramcar  mounted  slowly  up  the  hill,  where  the  ugly 
winter-grey  masses  of  houses  looked  like  a  vision  of  hell  that 
is  cold  and  angular.  They  sat  and  looked.  Away  in  the 
distance  was  an  angry  redness  of  sunset.  It  was  all  cold, 
somehow  small,  crowded,  and  like  the  end  of  the  world. 

"I  don't  mind  it  even  then,"  said  Ursula,  looking  at  the 
repulsiveness  of  it  all.     "It  doesn't  concern  me." 

"No  more  it  does,"  he  replied,  holding  her  hand.  "One 
needn't  see.  One  goes  one's  way.  In  my  world  it  is  sunny 
and  spacious — " 

"It  u,  my  love,  isn't  it?"    she  cried,  hugging  near  to  him 


404  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

on  the  top  of  the  tramcar,  so  that  the  other  passengers  stared 
at  them. 

"And  we  will  wander  about  on  the  face  of  the  earth," 
he  said,  "and  we'll  look  at  the  world  beyond  just  this  bit." 

There  was  a  long  silence.  Her  face  was  radiant  like  gold, 
as  she  sat  thinking. 

"I  don't  want  to  inherit  the  earth,"  she  said.  "I  don't 
want  to  inherit  anything." 

He  closed  his  hand  over  hers. 

"Neither  do  I.      I  want  to  be  disinherited." 

She  clasped  his  fingers  closely. 

"We  won't  care  about  anything,"  she  said. 

He  sat  still,  and  laughed. 

"And  we'll  be  married,  and  have  done  with  them,"  she 
added. 

Again  he  laughed. 

"It's  one  way  of  getting  rid  of  everything,"  she  said, 
"to  get  married." 

"And  one  way  of  accepting  the  whole  world,"  he  added. 

"A  whole  other  world,  yes,"  she  said  happily. 

"Perhaps  there's  Gerald — and  Gudrun — "  he  said. 

"If  there  is  there  is,  you  see,"  she  said.  "It's  no  good  our 
worrying.     We  can't  really  alter  them,  can  we?" 

"No,"  he  said.  "One  has  no  right  to  try — not  with  the 
best  intentions  in  the  world." 

"Do  you  try  to  force  them?"   she  asked. 

"Perhaps,"  he  said.  "Why  should  I  want  him  to  be  free, 
if  it  isn't  his  business?" 

She  paused  for  a  time. 

"We  can't  make  him  happy,  anyhow,"  she  said.  "He'd 
have  to  be  it  of  himself." 

"I  know,"  he  said. 

"But  we  want  other  people  with  us,  don't  we?" 

"Why  should  we?"   she  asked. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said  uneasily.  "One  has  a  hankering 
after  a  sort  of  further  fellowship." 

"But  why?"  she  insisted.  "Why  should  you  hanker 
after  other  people?   Why  should  you  need  them?" 

This  hit  him  right  on  the  quick.     His  brows  knitted. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  405 

"Does  it  end  with  just  our  two  selves?"  he  asked,  tense. 

"Yes — what  more  do  you  want?  If  anybody  likes  to  come 
along,  let  them.      But  why  must  you  run  after  them?" 

His  face  was  tense  and  unsatisfied. 

"You  see,"  he  said,  "I  always  imagine  our  being  really 
happy  with  some  few  other  people — a  little  freedom  with 
people." 

She  pondered  for  a  moment. 

"Yes,  one  does  want  that.  But  it  must  happen.  You 
can't  do  anything  for  it  with  your  will.  You  always  seem  to 
think  you  can  force  the  flowers  to  come  out.  People  must 
love  us  because  they  love  us — you  can't  make  them. 

"I  know,"  he  said.  "But  must  one  take  no  steps  at  all? 
Must  one  just  go  as  if  one  were  alone  in  the  world — the  only 
creature  in  the  world?" 

"You've  got  me,"  she  said.  "Why  should  you  need 
others?  Why  must  you  force  people  to  agree  with  you?  Why 
can't  you  be  single  by  yourself,  as  you  are  always  saying? — 
You  try  to  bully  Gerald — as  you  tried  to  bully  Hermione. — 
You  must  learn  to  be  alone. — And  it's  so  horrid  of  you.  You've 
got  me.  And  yet  you  want  to  force  other  people  to  love  you 
as  well.  You  do  try  to  bully  them  to  love  you. — And  even 
then,  you  don't  want  their  love." 

His  face  was  full  of  real  perplexity. 

"Don't  I?"  he  said.  "It's  the  problem  I  can't  solve. 
I  know  I  want  a  perfect  and  complete  relationship  with  you: 
and  we've  nearly  got  it — we  really  have. — But  beyond  that. 
Do  I  want  a  real,  ultimate  relationship  with  Gerald?  Do  I 
want  a  final,  almost  extra-human  relationship  with  him — a 
relationship  in  the  ultimate  of  me  and  him — or  don't  I?" 

She  looked  at  him  for  a  long  time,  with  strange  bright 
eyes,  but  she  did  not  answer. 


CHAPTER  XXVn 

THAT  evening  Ursula  returned  home  very  bright-eyed 
and  wondrous — which  irritated  her  people.  Her  father 
came  home  at  supper-time,  tired  after  the  evening  class, 
and  the  long  journey  home.  Gudrun  was  reading,  the 
mother  sat  in  silence. 

Suddenly  Ursula  said  to  the  company  at  large,  in  a  bright 
voice,  "Rupert  and  I  are  going  to  be  married  to-morrow." 

Her  father  turned  round,  stiffly. 

"You  what?"  he  said. 

"To-morrow!"   echoed  Gudrun. 

"Indeed !"   said  the  mother. 

But  Ursula  only  smiled  wonderfully,  and  did  not  reply. 

"Married  to-morrow!"  cried  her  father  harshly.  "What 
are  you  talking  about." 

"Yes,"  said  Ursula.  "Why  not?"  Those  two  words, 
from  her,  always  drove  him  mad.  "Everything  is  all  right — 
we  shall  go  to  the  registrar's  office — " 

There  was  a  second's  hush  in  the  room,  after  Ursula's 
blithe  vagueness. 

"Really,  Ursula!"   said  Gudrun. 

"Might  we  ask  why  there  has  been  all  this  secrecy?" 
demanded  the  mother,  rather  superbly. 

"But  there  hasn't,"  said  Ursula.     "You  knew." 

"Who  knew?"  now  cried  her  father.  "Who  knew? 
What  do  you  mean  by  your  'you  knew'?" 

He  was  in  one  of  his  stupid  rages,  she  instantly  closed 
against  him. 

"Of  course  you  knew,"  she  said  coolly.  "You  knew  we 
were  going  to  get  married." 

There  was  a  dangerous  pause. 

"We  knew  you  were  going  to  get  married,  did  we?  Knew! 
Why  then  does  anybody  know  anything  about  you,  you 
shifty  bitch'" 

"Father!"    cried  Gudrun,  flushing  deep  in  violent  remon- 

406 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  407 

strance.  Then,  in  a  cold,  but  gentle  voice,  as  if  to  remind 
her  sister  to  be  tractable.  "But  isn't  it  a  fearfully  sudden 
decision,  Ursula?"   she  asked. 

"No,  not  really,"  replied  Ursula,  with  the  same  madden- 
ing cheerfulness.  "He's  been  wanting  me  to  agree  for  weeks — 
he's  had  the  license  ready.  Only  I — I  wasn't  ready  in  my- 
self. Now  I  am  ready — is  there  anything  to  be  disagreeable 
about?" 

"Certainly  not,"  said  Gudrun,  but  in  a  tone  of  cold 
reproof.     "You  are  perfectly  free  to  do  as  you  like." 

'"Ready  in  yourself — yourself,  that's  all  that  matters, 
isn't  it!  T  wasn't  ready  in  myself,'"  he  mimicked  her  phrase 
offensively.  "You  and  yourself,  you're  of  some  importance, 
aren't  you?" 

She  drew  herself  up  and  set  back  her  throat,  her  eyes 
shining  yellow  and  dangerous. 

"I  am  to  myself,"  she  said,  wounded  and  mortified.  "I 
know  I  am  not  to  anybody  else.  You  only  wanted  to  bully 
me — you  never  cared  for  my  happiness." 

He  was  leaning  forward  watching  her,  his  face  intense 
like  a  spark. 

"Ursula,  what  are  you  saying?  Keep  your  tongue  still," 
cried  her  mother. 

Ursula  swung  round,  and  the  lights  in  her  eyes  flashed. 

"No,  I  won't,"  she  cried.  "I  won't  hold  my  tongue  and 
be  bullied.  What  does  it  matter  which  day  I  get  married — 
what  does  it  matlerl   It  doesn't  affect  anybody  but  myself." 

Her  father  was  tense  and  gathered  together  like  a  cat 
about  to  spring. 

"Doesn't  it?"  he  cried,  coming  nearer  to  her.  She  shrank 
away. 

"No,  how  can  it?"  she  replied,  shrinking  but  stubborn. 

"It  doesn't  matter  to  me  then,  what  you  do — what  becomes 
of  you?"  he  cried,  in  a  strange  voice  like  a  cry. 

The  mother  and  Gudrun  stood  back  as  if  hypnotised. 

"No,"  stammered  Ursula.  Her  father  was  very  near  to 
her.     "You  only  want  to " 

She  knew  it  was  dangerous,  and  she  stopped.  He  was 
gathered  together,  every  muscle  ready. 


408  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"What?"   he  challenged. 

"Bully  me,"  she  muttered,  and  even  as  her  lips  were 
moving,  his  hand  had  caught  her  smack  at  the  side  of  the 
face  and  she  was  sent  up  against  the  door. 

"Father!"   cried  Gudrun  in  a  high  voice,  "it  is  impossible!" 

He  stood  unmoving.  Ursula  recovered,  her  hand  was  on 
the  doorhandle.  She  slowly  drew  herself  up.  He  seemed 
doubtful  now. 

"It's  true,"  she  declared,  with  brilliant  tears  in  her  eyes, 
her  head  lifted  up  in  defiance.  "What  has  your  love  meant, 
what  did  it  ever  mean? — bullying,  and  denial — it  did — " 

He  was  advancing  again  with  strange,  tense  movements, 
and  clenched  fist,  and  the  face  of  a  murderer.  But  swift  as 
lightning  she  had  flashed  out  of  the  door,  and  they  heard  her 
running  upstairs. 

He  stood  for  a  moment  looking  at  the  door.  Then,  like  a 
defeated  animal,  he  turned  and  went  back  to  his  seat  by  the  fire. 

Gudrun  was  very  white.  Out  of  the  intense  silence, 
the  mother's  voice  was  heard  saying,  cold  and  angry: 

"Well,  you  shouldn't  take  so  much  notice  of  her." 

Again  the  silence  fell,  each  followed  a  separate  set  of 
emotions  and  thoughts. 

Suddenly  the  door  opened  again:  Ursula,  dressed  in  hat 
and  furs,  with  a  small  valise  in  her  hand : 

"Good-bye!"  she  said,  in  her  maddening,  bright,  almost 
mocking  tone.      "I'm  going." 

And  in  the  next  instant  the  door  was  closed,  they  heard  the 
outer  door,  then  her  quick  steps  down  the  garden  path,  then 
the  gate  banged,  and  her  light  footfall  was  gone.  There  was 
a  silence  like  death  in  the  house. 

Ursula  went  straight  to  the  station,  hastening  heedlessly 
on  winged  feet.  There  was  no  train,  she  must  walk  on  to 
the  junction.  As  she  went  through  the  darkness,  she  began 
to  cry,  and  she  wept  bitterly,  with  a  dumb,  heart-broken, 
child's  anguish,  all  the  way  on  the  road,  and  in  the  train. 
Time  passed  unheeded  and  unknown,  she  did  not  know  where 
she  was,  nor  what  was  taking  place.  Only  she  wept  from 
fathomless  depths  of  hopeless,  hopeless  grief,  the  terrible  grief 
of  a  child,  that  knows  no  extenuation. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  409 

Yet  her  voice  had  the  same  defensive  brightness  as  she 
spoke  to  Birkin's  landlady  at  the  door. 

"Good  evening!   Is  Mr.  Birkin  in?   Can  I  see  him?" 

"Yes,  he's  in.     He's  in  his  study." 

Ursula  slipped  past  the  woman.  His  door  opened.  He 
had  heard  her  voice. 

"Hello!"  he  exclaimed  in  surprise,  seeing  her  standing 
there  with  the  valise  in  her  hand,  and  marks  of  tears  on  her 
face.  She  was  one  who  wept  without  showing  many  traces, 
like  a  child. 

"Do  I  look  a  sight?"   she  said,  shrinking. 

"No — why?  Come  in,"  he  took  the  bag  from  her  hand 
and  they  went  into  the  study. 

There — immediately,  her  lips  began  to  tremble  like  those 
of  a  child  that  remembers  again,  and  the  tears  came  rushing  up. 

"What's  the  matter?"  he  asked,  taking  her  in  his  arms. 
She  sobbed  violently  on  his  shoulder,  whilst  he  held  her  still, 
waiting. 

"What's  the  matter?"  he  said  again,  when  she  was  quieter. 
But  she  only  pressed  her  face  further  into  his  shoulder,  in  pain, 
like  a  child  that  cannot  tell. 

"What  is  it,  then?"  he  asked. 

Suddenly  she  broke  away,  wiped  her  eyes,  regained  her 
composure,  and  went  and  sat  in  a  chair. 

"Father  hit  me,"  she  announced,  sitting  bunched  up, 
rather  like  a  ruffled  bird,  her  eyes  very  bright. 

"What  for?"  he  said. 

She  looked  away,  and  would  not  answer.  There  was  a 
pitiful  redness  about  her  sensitive  nostrils,  and  her  quivering 
lips. 

"Why?"  he  repeated,  in  his  strange,  soft,  penetrating 
voice. 

She  looked  round  at  him,  rather  defiantly. 

"Because  I  said  I  was  going  to  be  married  to-morrow, 
and  he  bullied  me." 

"Why  did  he  bully  you?" 

Her  mouth  dropped  again,  she  remembered  the  scene  once 
more,  the  tears  came  up. 

"Because  I  said  he  didn't  care — and  he  doesn't,  it's  only 


410  WOMEN  LN  LOVE 

his  domineeringness  that's  hurt — "  she  said,  her  mouth  pulled 
awry  by  her  weeping,  all  the  time  she  spoke,  so  that  he  almost 
smiled,  it  seemed  so  childish.  Yet  it  was  not  childish,  it  was 
a  mortal  conflict,  a  deep  wound. 

"It  isn't  quite  true,"  he  said.  "And  even  so,  you 
shouldn't  say  it." 

"It  is  true — it  is  true,"  she  wept,  "and  I  won't  be  bullied 
by  his  pretending  it's  love — when  it  isn't — he  doesn't  care, 
how  can  he — no,  he  can't — " 

He  sat  in  silence.     She  moved  him  beyond  himself. 

"Then  you  shouldn't  rouse  him,  if  he  can't,"  replied  Bir- 
kin  quietly. 

"And  I  have  loved  him,  I  have,"  she  wept.  "I've  loved 
him  always,  and  he's  always  done  this  to  me,  he  has — " 

"It's  been  a  love  of  opposition,  then,"  he  said.  "Never 
mind — it  will  be  all  right.      It's  nothing  desperate." 

"Yes,"  she  wept,  "it  is,  it  is." 

"Why?" 

"I  shall  never  see  him  again " 

"Not  immediately — Don't  cry,  you  had  to  break  with 
him,  it  had  to  be — don't  cry." 

He  went  over  to  her  and  kissed  her  fine,  fragile  hair, 
touching  her  wet  cheeks  gently. 

"Don't  cry,"  he  repeated,  "don't  cry  any  more." 

He  held  her  head  close  against  him,  very  close  and  quiet. 

At  last  she  was  still.  Then  she  looked  up,  her  eyes  wide 
and  frightened. 

"Don't  you  want  me?"   she  asked. 

"Want  you?"  His  darkened,  steady  eyes  puzzled  her  and 
did  not  give  her  play. 

"Do  you  wish  I  hadn't  come?"  she  asked,  anxious  now 
again  for  fear  she  might  be  out  of  place. 

"No,"  he  said.  "I  wish  there  hadn't  been  the  violence — 
so  much  ugliness — but  perhaps  it  was  inevitable." 

She  watched  him  in  silence.     He  seemed  deadened. 

"But  where  shall  I  stay?"   she  asked,  feeling  humiliated. 

He  thought  for  a  moment. 

"Here,  with  me,"  he  said.  "We're  married  as  much 
to-day  as  we  shall  be  to-morrow." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  411 

"But—" 

"I'll  tell  Mrs.  Varley,"  he  said.      "Never  mind  now." 

He  sat  looking  at  her.  She  could  feel  his  darkened  steady 
eyes  looking  at  her  all  the  time.  It  made  her  a  little  bit 
frightened.      She  pushed  her  hair  off  her  forehead  nervously. 

"Do  I  look  ugly?"   she  said. 

And  she  blew  her  nose  again. 

A  small  smile  came  round  his  eyes. 

"No,"  he  said,  "fortunately." 

And  he  went  across  to  her,  and  gathered  her  like  a  belong- 
ing in  his  arms.  She  was  so  tenderly  beautiful,  he  could  not 
bear  to  see  her,  he  could  only  bear  to  hide  her  against  himself. 
Now,  washed  all  clean  by  her  tears,  she  was  new  and  frail 
like  a  flower  just  unfolded,  a  flower  so  new,  so  tender,  so  made 
perfect  by  inner  light,  that  he  could  not  bear  to  look  at  her, 
he  must  hide  her  against  himself,  cover  his  eyes  against  her. 
She  had  the  perfect  candour  of  creation,  something  trans- 
lucent and  simple,  like  a  radiant,  shining  flower  that  moment 
unfolded  in  primal  blessedness.  She  was  so  new,  so  wonder- 
clear,  so  undimmed.  And  he  was  so  old,  so  steeped  in  heavy 
memories.  Her  soul  was  new,  undefined  and  glimmering 
with  the  unseen.  And  his  soul  was  dark  and  gloomy,  it  had 
only  one  grain  of  living  hope,  like  a  grain  of  mustard  seed. 
But  this  one  living  grain  in  him  matched  the  perfect  youth 
in  her. 

"I  love  you,"  he  whispered  as  he  kissed  her,  and  trembled 
with  pure  hope,  like  a  man  who  is  born  again  to  a  wonderful, 
lively  hope  far  exceeding  the  bounds  of  death. 

She  could  not  know  how  much  it  meant  to  him,  how  much 
he  meant  by  the  few  words.  Almost  childish,  she  wanted 
proof,  and  statement,  even  overstatement,  for  everything 
seemed  still  uncertain,  unfixed  to  her. 

But  the  passion  of  gratitude  with  which  he  received  her 
into  his  soul,  the  extreme,  unthinkable  gladness  of  knowing 
himself  living  and  fit  to  unite  with  her,  he,  who  was  so  nearly 
dead,  who  was  so  near  to  being  gone  with  the  rest  of  his  race 
down  the  slope  of  mechanical  death,  could  never  be  under- 
stood by  her.  He  worshipped  her  as  age  worships  youth, 
he  gloried  in  her,  because,  in  his  one  grain  of  faith,  he  was 


412  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

young  as  she,  he  was  her  proper  mate.  This  marriage  with 
her  was  his  resurrection  and  his  life. 

All  this  she  could  not  know.  She  wanted  to  be  made  much 
of,  to  be  adored.  There  were  infinite  distances  of  silence 
between  them.  How  could  he  tell  her  of  the  immanence  of 
her  beauty,  that  was  not  form,  or  weight,  or  colour,  but  some- 
thing like  a  strange,  golden  light!  How  could  he  know  himself 
what  her  beauty  lay  in,  for  him.  He  said  "Your  nose  is 
beautiful,  your  chin  is  adorable."  But  it  sounded  like  lies, 
and  she  was  disappointed,  hurt.  Even  when  he  said,  whisper- 
ing with  truth,  "I  love  you,  I  love  you,"  it  was  not  the  real 
truth.  It  was  something  beyond  love,  such  a  gladness  of 
having  surpassed  oneself,  of  having  transcended  the  old 
existence.  How  could  he  say  "I"  when  he  was  something 
new  and  unknown,  not  himself  at  all?  This  I,  this  old  formula 
of  the  age,  was  a  dead  letter. 

In  the  new,  superfine  bliss,  a  peace  superseding  knowledge, 
there  was  no  I  and  you,  there  was  only  the  third,  unrealised 
wonder,  the  wonder  of  existing  not  as  oneself,  but  in  a  con- 
summation of  my  being  and  of  her  being  in  a  new  one,  a  new, 
paradisal  unit  regained  from  the  duality.  Nor  can  I  say 
"I  love  you,"  when  I  have  ceased  to  be,  and  you  have  ceased 
to  be,  we  are  both  caught  up  and  transcended  into  a  new 
oneness  where  everything  is  silent,  because  there  is  nothing 
to  answer,  all  is  perfect  and  at  one.  Speech  travels  between 
the  separate  parts.  But  in  the  perfect  One  there  is  perfect 
silence  of  bliss. 

They  were  married  by  law  on  the  next  day,  and  she  did 
as  he  bade  her,  she  wrote  to  her  father  and  mother.  Her 
mother  replied,  not  her  father. 

She  did  not  go  back  to  school.  She  stayed  with  Birkin 
in  his  rooms,  or  at  the  Mill,  moving  with  him  as  he  moved. 
But  she  did  not  see  anybody,  save  Gudrun  and  Gerald.  She 
was  all  strange  and  wondering  as  yet,  but  relieved  as  by  dawn. 

Gerald  sat  talking  to  her  one  afternoon  in  the  warm  study 
down  at  the  Mill.      Rupert  had  not  yet  come  home. 

"You  are  happy?"    Gerald  asked  her,  with  a  smile. 

"Very  happy!"  she  cried,  shrinking  a  little  in  her  bright- 
ness. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  413 

"Yes,  one  can  see  it." 

"Can  one?"   cried  Ursula  in  surprise. 

He  looked  up  at  her  with  a  communicative  smile. 

"Oh  yes,  plainly." 

She  was  pleased.     She  meditated  a  moment. 

"And  can  you  see  that  Rupert  is  happy  as  well?" 

He  lowered  his  eyelids,  and  looked  aside. 

"Oh  yes,"  he  said. 

"Really!" 

"Oh  yes." 

He  was  very  quiet,  as  if  it  were  something  not  to  be  talked 
about  by  him.      He  seemed  sad. 

She  was  very  sensitive  to  suggestion.  She  asked  the 
question  he  wanted  her  to  ask. 

"Why  don't  you  be  happy  as  well?"  she  said.  "You 
could  be  just  the  same." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"With  Gudrun?"  he  asked. 

"Yes!"  she  cried,  her  eyes  glowing.  But  there  was  a 
strange  tension,  an  emphasis,  as  if  they  were  asserting  their 
wishes,  against  the  truth. 

"You  think  Gudrun  would  have  me,  and  we  should  be 
happy?"  he  said. 

"Yes,  I'm  sure!"  she  cried. 

Her  eyes  were  round  with  delight.  Yet  underneath  she 
was  constrained,  she  knew  her  own  insistence. 

"Oh,  I'm  so  glad,"  she  added. 

He  smiled. 

"What  makes  you  glad?"   he  said. 

"For  her  sake,"  she  replied.  "I'm  sure  you'd — you're 
the  right  man  for  her." 

"You  are?"  he  said.  "And  do  you  think  she  would  agree 
with  you?" 

"Oh  yes!"  she  exclaimed  hastily.  Then,  upon  recon- 
sideration, very  uneasy:  "Though  Gudrun  isn't  so  very  simple, 
is  she?  One  doesn't  know  her  in  five  minutes,  does  one? 
She's  not  like  me  in  that."  She  laughed  at  him  with  her 
strange,  open,  dazzled  face. 

"You  think  she's  not  much  like  you?"    Gerald  asked. 


414  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

She  knitted  her  brows. 

"Oh,  in  many  ways  she  is. — But  I  never  know  what  she 
will  do  when  anything  new  comes." 

"You  don't?"  said  Gerald.  He  was  silent  for  some 
moments.  Then  he  moved  tentatively.  "I  was  going  to 
ask  her,  in  any  case,  to  go  away  with  me  at  Christmas,"  he 
said,  in  a  very  small,  cautious  voice. 

"Go  away  with  you?   For  a  time,  you  mean?" 

"As  long  as  she  likes,"  he  said,  with  a  deprecating  move- 
ment. 

They  were  both  silent  for  some  minutes. 

"Of  course,"  said  Ursula  at  last,  "she  might  just  be  willing 
to  rush  into  marriage.     You  can  see." 

"Yes,"  smiled  Gerald.  "I  can  see.  But  in  case  she  won't 
— do  you  think  she  would  go  abroad  with  me  for  a  few  days — 
or  for  a  fortnight?" 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Ursula.      "I'd  ask  her." 

"Do  you  think  we  might  all  go  together?" 

"All  of  us?"  Again  Ursula's  face  lighted  up.  "It  would 
be  rather  fun,  don't  you  think?" 

"Great  fun,"  he  said. 

"And  then  you  could  see,"  said  Ursula. 

"What?" 

"How  things  went.  I  think  it  is  best  to  take  the  honey- 
moon before  the  wedding — don't  you?" 

She  was  pleased  with  this  mot.     He  laughed. 

"In  certain  cases,"  he  said.  "I'd  rather  it  were  so  in 
my  own  case." 

"Would  you?"  exclaimed  Ursula.  Then  doubtingly, 
"Yes,  perhaps  you're  right.     One  should  please  oneself." 

Birkin  came  in  a  little  later,  and  Ursula  told  him  what  had 
been  said. 

"Gudrun?"  exclaimed  Birkin.  "She's  a  born  mistress, 
just  as  Gerald  is  a  born  lover — amant  en  titre.  If  as  somebody 
says  all  women  are  either  wives  or  mistresses,  then  Gudrun 
is  a  mistress." 

"And  all  men  either  lovers  or  husbands,"  cried  Ursula. 
"But  why  not  both?" 

"The  one  excludes  the  other,"  he  laughed. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  415 

"Then  I  want  a  lover,"  cried  Ursula. 

"No  you  don't,"  he  said. 

"But  I  do,"  she  wailed. 

He  kissed  her,  and  laughed. 

It  was  two  days  after  this  that  Ursula  was  to  go  to  fetch 
her  things  from  the  house  in  Beldover.  The  removal  had 
taken  place,  the  family  had  gone.  Gudrun  had  rooms  in 
Willey  Green. 

Ursula  had  not  seen  her  parents  since  her  marriage.  She 
wept  over  the  rupture,  yet  what  was  the  good  of  making  it 
up!  Good  or  not  good,  she  could  not  go  to  them.  So  her 
things  had  been  left  behind  and  she  and  Gudrun  were  to  walk 
over  for  them,  in  the  afternoon. 

It  was  a  wintry  afternoon,  with  red  in  the  sky,  when  they 
arrived  at  the  house.  The  windows  were  dark  and  blank, 
already  the  place  was  frightening.  A  stark,  void  entrance- 
hall  struck  a  chill  to  the  hearts  of  the  girls. 

"I  don't  believe  I  dare  have  come  in  alone,"  said  Ursula. 
"It  frightens  me." 

"Ursula!"  cried  Gudrun.  "Isn't  it  amazing!  Can  you 
believe  you  lived  in  this  place  and  never  felt  it?  How  I  lived 
here  a  day  without  dying  of  terror,  I  cannot  conceive?" 

They  looked  in  the  big  dining  room.  It  was  a  good-sized 
room,  but  now  a  cell  would  have  been  lovelier.  The  large 
bay  windows  were  naked,  the  floor  was  stripped,  and  a  border 
of  dark  polish  went  round  the  tract  of  pale  boarding.  In  the 
faded  wall-paper  were  dark  patches  where  furniture  had  stood, 
where  pictures  had  hung.  The  sense  of  walls,  dry,  thin, 
flimsy-seeming  walls,  and  a  flimsy  flooring,  pale  with  its 
artificial  black  edges,  was  neutralising  to  the  mind.  Every- 
thing was  null  to  the  senses,  there  was  enclosure  without 
substance,  for  the  walls  were  dry  and  papery.  Where  were 
they  standing,  on  earth,  or  suspended  in  some  cardboard  box? 
In  the  hearth  was  burnt  paper,  and  scraps  of  half-burnt  paper. 

"Imagine  that  we  passed  our  days  here!"  said  Ursula. 

"I  know,"  cried  Gudrun.  "It  is  too  appalling.  What 
we  be  like,  if  we  are  the  contents  of  thisl" 

"Vile!"   said  Ursula.     "It  really  is." 

And    she    recognised    half-burnt    covers    of    "Vogue" — 


416  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

half-burnt  representations  of  women  in  gowns — lying  under 
the  grate. 

They  went  to  the  drawing  room.  Another  piece  of  shut- 
in  air;  without  weight  or  substance,  only  a  sense  of  intolerable 
papery  imprisonment  in  nothingness.  The  kitchen  did  look 
more  substantial,  because  of  the  red-tiled  floor  and  the  stove, 
but  it  was  cold  and  horrid. 

The  two  girls  tramped  hollowly  up  the  bare  stairs.  Every 
sound  re-echoed  under  their  hearts.  They  tramped  down 
the  bare  corridor.  Against  the  wall  of  Ursula's  bedroom 
were  her  things — a  trunk,  a  work-basket,  some  books,  loose 
coats,  a  hat-box,  standing  desolate  in  the  universal  emptiness 
of  the  dusk. 

"A  cheerful  sight,  aren't  they?"  said  Ursula,  looking  down 
at  her  forsaken  possessions. 

"Very  cheerful,"  said  Gudrun. 

The  two  girls  set  to,  carrying  everything  down  to  the 
front  door.  Again  and  again  they  made  the  hollow,  re- 
echoing transit.  The  whole  place  seemed  to  resound  about 
them  with  a  noise  of  hollow,  empty  futility.  In  the  distance 
the  empty,  invisible  rooms  sent  forth  a  vibration  almost  of 
obscenity.  They  almost  fled  with  the  last  articles,  into  the 
out-of-door. 

But  it  was  cold.  They  were  waiting  for  Birkin,  who  was 
coming  with  the  car.  They  went  indoors  again,  and  upstairs 
to  their  parents'  front  bedroom,  whose  windows  looked  down 
on  the  road,  and  across  the  country  at  the  black-barred  sun- 
set, black  and  red  barred,  without  light. 

They  sat  down  in  the  window-seat,  to  wait.  Both  girls 
were  looking  over  the  room.  It  was  void,  with  a  meaning- 
lessness  that  was  almost  dreadful. 

"Really,"  said  Ursula,  "this  room  couldn't  be  sacred,  could 
it?" 

Gudrun  looked  over  it  with  slow  eyes. 

"Impossible,"  she  replied. 

"When  I  think  of  their  lives — father's  and  mother's,  their 
love,  and  their  marriage,  and  all  of  us  children,  and  our  bring- 
ing up — would  you  have  such  a  life,  Prune?" 

"I  wouldn't,  Ursula." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  417 

"It  all  seems  so  nothing — their  two  lives — there's  no 
meaning  in  it.  Really,  if  they  had  not  met,  and  not  married, 
and  not  lived  together — it  wouldn't  have  mattered,  would  it?" 

"Of  course — you  can't  tell,"  said  Gudrun. 

"No.  But  if  I  thought  my  life  was  going  to  be  like  it — 
Prune,"  she  caught  Gudrun's  arm,  "I  should  run." 

Gudrun  was  silent  for  a  few  moments. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  one  cannot  contemplate  the  ordinary 
life — one  cannot  contemplate  it,"  replied  Gudrun.  "With 
you,  Ursula,  it  is  quite  different.  You  will  be  out  of  it  all, 
with  Birkin.  He's  a  special  case.  But  with  the  ordinary 
man,  who  has  his  life  fixed  in  one  place,  marriage  is  just  im- 
possible. There  may  be,  and  there  are,  thousands  of  women 
who  want  it,  and  could  conceive  of  nothing  else.  But  the 
very  thought  of  it  sends  me  mad.  One  must  be  free,  above 
all,  one  must  be  free.  One  may  forfeit  everything  else,  but 
one  must  be  free — one  must  not  become  7  Pinchbeck  Street — 
or  Somerset  Drive — or  Shortlands.  No  man  will  be  sufficient 
to  make  that  good — no  man!  To  marry,  one  must  have  a  free 
lance,  or  nothing,  a  comrade-in-arms,  a  Glucksritter.  A  man 
with  a  position  in  the  social  world — well,  it  is  just  impossible, 
impossible!" 

"What  a  lovely  word — a  Glucksritter !"  said  Ursula. 
"So  much  nicer  than  a  soldier  of  fortune." 

"Yes,  isn't  it?"  said  Gudrun.  "I'd  tilt  the  world  with  a 
Glucksritter.  But  a  home,  an  establishment!  Ursula,  what 
would  it  mean? — think!" 

"I  know,"  said  Ursula.  "We've  had  one  home — that's 
enough  for  me." 

"Quite  enough,"  said  Gudrun. 

"The  little  grey  home  in  the  west,"  quoted  Ursula  ironically. 

"Doesn't  it  sound  grey,  too,"  said  Gudrun  grimly. 

They  were  interrupted  by  the  sound  of  the  car.  There 
was  Birkin.  Ursula  was  surprised  that  she  felt  so  lit  up, 
that  she  became  suddenly  so  free  from  the  problems  of  grey 
homes  in  the  west. 

They  heard  his  heels  click  on  the  hall  pavement  below. 

"Hello !"  he  called,  his  voice  echoing  alive  through  the  house. 
Ursula  smiled  to  herself.    He  was  frightened  of  the  place  too. 


418  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Hello!  Here  we  are,"  she  called  downstairs.  And  they 
heard  him  quickly  running  up. 

"This  is  a  ghostly  situation,"  he  said. 

"These  houses  don't  have  ghosts — they've  never  had  any 
personality,  and  only  a  place  with  personality  can  have  a 
ghost,"  said  Gudrun. 

"I  suppose  so.     Are  you  both  weeping  over  the  past?" 

"We  are,"  said  Gudrun,  grimly. 

Ursula  laughed. 

"Not  weeping  that  it's  gone,  but  weeping  that  it  ever 
was,"  she  said. 

"Oh,"  he  replied,  relieved. 

He  sat  down  for  a  moment.  There  was  something  in  his 
presence,  Ursula  thought,  lambent  and  alive.  It  made  even 
the  impertinent  structure  of  this  null  house  disappear. 

"Gudrun  says  she  could  not  bear  to  be  married  and  put 
into  a  house,"  said  Ursula  meaningful — they  knew  this 
referred  to  Gerald. 

He  was  silent  for  some  moments. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "if  you  know  beforehand  you  couldn't 
stand  it,  you're  safe." 

"Quite!"   said  Gudrun. 

"Why  does  every  woman  think  her  aim  in  life  is  to  have 
a  hubby  and  a  little  grey  home  in  the  west?  Why  is  this  the 
goal  of  life?   Why  should  it  be?"   said  Ursula. 

"II  faut  avoir  le  respect  de  ses  betises,"  said  Birkin. 

"But  you  needn't  have  the  respect  for  the  bitise  before 
you've  committed  it,"  laughed  Ursula. 

"Ah  then,  des  betises  du  papa?" 

"Et  de  la  maman,"  added  Gudrun  satirically. 

"Et  des  voisins,"  said  Ursula. 

They  all  laughed,  and  rose.  It  was  getting  dark.  They 
carried  the  things  to  the  car.  Gudrun  locked  the  door  of  the 
empty  house.  Birkin  had  lighted  the  lamps  of  the  automo- 
bile.     It  all  seemed  very  happy,  as  if  they  were  setting  out. 

"Do  you  mind  stopping  at  Coulsons.  I  have  to  leave  the 
key  there,"  said  Gudrun. 

"Right,"  said  Birkin,  and  they  moved  off. 

They  stopped  in  the  main  street.      The  shops  were  just 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  419 

lighted,  the  last  miners  were  passing  home  along  the  cause- 
ways, half-visible  shadows  in  their  grey  pit-dirt,  moving 
through  the  blue  air.  But  their  feet  rang  harshly  in  manifold 
sound,  along  the  pavement. 

How  pleased  Gudrun  was  to  come  out  of  the  shop,  and  enter 
the  car,  and  be  borne  swiftly  away  into  the  down-hill  of  pal- 
pable dusk,  with  Ursula  and  Birkin!  What  an  adventure 
life  seemed  at  this  moment!  How  deeply,  how  suddenly  she 
envied  Ursula!  Life  for  her  was  so  quick,  and  an  open  door — 
so  reckless  as  if  not  only  this  world,  but  the  world  that  was 
gone  and  the  world  to  come  were  nothing  to  her.  Ah,  if 
she  could  be  just  like  that,  it  would  be  perfect. 

For  always,  except  in  her  moments  of  excitement,  she 
felt  a  want  within  herself.  She  was  unsure.  She  had  felt 
that  now,  at  last,  in  Gerald's  strong  and  violent  love,  she  was 
living  fully  and  finally.  But  when  she  compared  herself 
with  Ursula,  already  her  soul  was  jealous,  unsatisfied.  She 
was  not  satisfied — she  was  never  to  be  satisfied. 

What  was  she  short  of  now?  It  was  marriage — it  was  the 
wonderful  stability  of  marriage.  She  did  want  it,  let  her  say 
what  she  might.  She  had  been  lying.  The  old  idea  of 
marriage  was  right  even  now — marriage  and  the  home.  Yet 
her  mouth  gave  a  little  grimace  at  the  words.  She  thought 
of  Gerald  and  Shortlands — marriage  and  the  home!  Ah  well, 
let  it  rest!  He  meant  a  great  deal  to  her — but — !  Perhaps 
it  was  not  in  her  to  marry.  She  was  one  of  life's  outcasts, 
one  of  the  drifting  lives  that  have  no  root.  No,  no — it  could 
not  be  so.  She  suddenly  conjured  up  a  rosy  room,  with 
herself  in  a  beautiful  gown,  and  a  handsome  man  in  evening 
dress  who  held  her  in  his  arms  in  the  firelight,  and  kissed  her. 
This  picture  she  entitled  "Home."  It  would  have  done  for 
the  Royal  Academy. 

"Come  with  us  to  tea — do"  said  Ursula,  as  they  ran  nearer 
to  the  cottage  of  Willey  Green. 

"Thanks  awfully — but  I  must  go  in,"  said  Gudrun.  She 
wanted  very  much  to  go  on  with  Ursula  and  Birkin.  That 
seemed  like  life  indeed  to  her.  Yet  a  certain  perversity  would 
not  let  her. 

"Do  come — yes,  it  would  be  so  nice,"  pleaded  Ursula. 


420  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

"I'm  awfully  sorry — I  should  love  to — but  I  can't — really." 

She  descended  from  the  car  in  trembling  haste. 

"Can't  you  really?"  came  Ursula's  regretful  voice. 

"No,  really  I  can't,"  responded  Gudrun's  pathetic,  cha- 
grined words  out  of  the  dusk. 

"All  right,  are  you?"  called  Birkin. 

"Quite!"  said  Gudrun.      "Good-night!" 

"Good-night,"  they  called. 

"Come  whenever  you  like,  we  shall  be  glad,"  called  Birkin. 

"Thank  you  very  much,"  called  Gudrun,  in  the  strange, 
twanging  voice  of  lonely  chagrin  that  was  very  puzzling  to 
him.  She  turned  away  to  her  cottage  gate,  and  they  drove 
on.  But  immediately  she  stood  to  watch  them,  as  the  car 
ran  vague  into  the  distance.  And  as  she  went  up  the  path 
to  her  strange  house,  her  heart  was  full  of  incomprehensible 
bitterness. 

In  her  parlour  was  a  long-case  clock,  and  inserted  into  its 
dial  was  a  ruddy,  round,  slant-eyed,  joyous-painted  face,  that 
wagged  over  with  the  most  ridiculous  ogle  when  the  clock 
ticked,  and  back  again  with  the  same  absurd  glad-eye  at  the 
next  tick.  All  the  time  the  absurd  smooth,  brown-ruddy  face 
gave  her  an  obtrusive  "glad-eye."  She  stood  for  minutes, 
watching  it,  till  a  sort  of  maddened  disgust  overcame  her,  and 
she  laughed  at  herself  hollowly.  And  still  it  rocked,  and  gave 
her  the  glad-eye  from  one  side,  then  from  the  other,  from  one 
side,  then  from  the  other.  Ah,  how  unhappy  she  was!  In 
the  midst  of  her  most  active  happiness,  ah,  how  unhappy  she 
was!  She  glanced  at  the  table.  Gooseberry  jam,  and  the 
same  home-made  cake  with  too  much  soda  in  it!  Still,  goose- 
berry jam  was  good,  and  one  so  rarely  got  it. 

All  the  evening  she  wanted  to  go  to  the  Mill.  But  she 
coldly  refused  to  allow  herself.  She  went  the  next  afternoon 
instead.  She  was  happy  to  find  Ursula  alone.  It  was  a 
lovely,  intimate  secluded  atmosphere.  They  talked  endlessly 
and  delightedly.  "Aren't  you  fearfully  happy  here?"  said 
Gudrun  to  her  sister,  glancing  at  her  own  bright  eyes  in  the 
mirror.  She  always  envied,  almost  with  resentment,  the 
strange  positive  fulness  that  subsisted  in  the  atmosphere 
around  Ursula  and  Birkin. 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  421 

"How  really  beautifully  this  room  is  done,"  she  said  aloud. 
"This  hard-plaited  matting — what  a  lovely  colour  it  is,  the 
colour  of  cool  light!" 

And  it  seemed  to  her  perfect. 

"Ursula,"  she  said  at  length,  in  a  voice  of  question  and 
detachment,  "did  you  know  that  Gerald  Crich  had  suggested 
our  going  away  all  together  at  Christmas?" 

"Yes,  he's  spoken  to  Rupert." 

A  deep  flush  dyed  Gudrun's  cheek.  She  was  silent  a 
moment,  as  if  taken  aback,  and  not  knowing  what  to  say. 

"But  don't  you  think,"  she  said  at  last,  "it  is  amazingly 
cool?" 

Ursula  laughed. 

"I  like  him  for  it,"  she  said. 

Gudrun  was  silent.  It  was  evident  that,  whilst  she  was 
almost  mortified  by  Gerald's  taking  the  liberty  of  making 
such  a  suggestion  to  Birkin,  yet  the  idea  itself  attracted  her 
strongly. 

"There's  a  rather  lovely  simplicity  about  Gerald,  I  think," 
said  Ursula,  "so  defiant,  somehow!  Oh,  I  think  he's  very 
lovable. 

Gudrun  did  not  reply  for  some  moments.  She  had  still 
to  get  over  the  feeling  of  insult  at  the  liberty  taken  with  her 
freedom. 

"What  did  Rupert  say — do  you  know?"  she  asked. 

"He  said  it  would  be  most  awfully  jolly,"  said  Ursula. 

Again  Gudrun  looked  down,  and  was  silent. 

"Don't  you  think  it  would?"  said  Ursula,  tentatively. 
She  was  never  quite  sure  how  many  defences  Gudrun  was 
having  round  herself. 

Gudrun  raised  her  face  with  difficulty  and  held  it  averted. 

"I  think  it  might  be  awfully  jolly,  as  you  say,"  she  replied. 
"But  don't  you  think  it  was  an  unpardonable  liberty  to  take — 
to  talk  of  such  things  to  Rupert — who,  after  all — you  see  what 
I  mean,  Ursula — they  might  have  been  two  men  arranging 
an  outing  with  some  little  type  they'd  picked  up.  Oh,  I 
think  it's  unforgivable,  quite!" — She  used  the  French  word 
"type." 

Her  eyes  flashed,  her  soft  face  was  flushed  and  sullen. 


422  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

Ursula  looked  on,  rather  frightened,  frightened  most  of  all 
because  she  thought  Gudrun  seemed  rather  common,  really 
like  a  little  type.  But  she  had  not  the  courage  quite  to  think 
this — not  right  out. 

"Oh,  no,"  she  cried,  stammering.  "Oh,  no — not  at  all 
like  that — oh  no! — No,  I  think  it's  rather  beautiful,  the  friend- 
ship between  Rupert  and  Gerald.  They  just  are  simple — 
they  say  anything  to  each  other,  like  brothers." 

Gudrun  flushed  deeper.  She  could  not  bear  it  that  Gerald 
gave  her  away — even  to  Birkin. 

"But  do  you  think  even  brothers  have  any  right  to  ex- 
change confidences  of  that  sort?"  she  asked,  with  deep  anger. 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Ursula.  "There's  never  anything  said  that 
isn't  perfectly  straightforward.  No,  the  thing  that's  amazed 
me  most  in  Gerald — how  perfectly  simple  and  direct  he  can 
be!  And  you  know,  it  takes  rather  a  big  man.  Most  of  them 
must  be  indirect,  they  are  such  cowards." 

But  Gudrun  was  still  silent  with  anger.  She  wanted  the 
absolute  secrecy  kept,  with  regard  to  her  movements. 

"Won't  you  go?"  said  Ursula.  "Do,  we  might  all  be  so 
happy!  There  is  something  I  love  about  Gerald — he's  much 
more  lovable  than  I  thought  him.  He's  free,  Gudrun,  he 
really  is." 

Gudrun's  mouth  was  still  closed,  sullen  and  ugly.  She 
opened  it  at  length. 

"Do  you  know  where  he  proposes  to  go?"  she  asked. 

"Yes — to  the  Tyrol,  where  he  used  to  go  when  he  was  in 
Germany — a  lovely  place  where  students  go,  small  and  rough 
and  lovely,  for  winter  sport!" 

Through  Gudrun's  mind  went  the  angry  thought — "they 
know  everything." 

"Yes,"  she  said  aloud,  "about  forty  kilometers  from  Innes- 
bruck,  isn't  it?" 

"I  don't  know  exactly  where — but  it  would  be  lovely, 
don't  you  think,  high  in  the  perfect  snow?" 

"Very  lovely!"  said  Gudrun,  sarcastically. 

Ursula  was  put  out. 

"Of  course,"  she  said,  "I  think  Gerald  spoke  to  Rupert  so 
that  it  shouldn't  seem  like  an  outing  with  a  type — " 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  423 

"I  know,  of  course,"  said  Gudrun,  "that  he  quite  com- 
monly does  take  up  with  that  sort." 

"Does  he?"  said  Ursula.     "Why,  how  do  you  know?" 

"I  know  of  a  model  in  Chelsea,"  said  Gudrun  coldly. 

Now  Ursula  was  silent. 

"Well,"  she  said  at  last,  with  a  doubtful  laugh,  "I  hope 
he  has  a  good  time  with  her."  At  which  Gudrun  looked 
more  glum. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

CHRISTMAS   drew  near,   all   four  prepared  for  flight. 
Birkin  and  Ursula  were  busy  packing  their  few  per- 
sonal things,  making  them  ready  to  be  sent  off,  to 
whatever  country  and  whatever  place  they  might  choose  on 
at  last.      Gudrun  was  very  much  excited.      She  loved  to  be 
on  the  wing. 

She  and  Gerald,  being  ready  first,  set  off  via  London  and 
Paris  to  Innsbruck,  where  they  would  meet  Ursula  and  Birkin. 
In  London  they  stayed  one  night.  They  went  to  the  music- 
hall,  and  afterwards  to  the  Pompadour  Cafe\ 

Gudrun  hated  the  Cafe,  yet  she  always  went  back  to  it, 
as  did  most  of  the  artists  of  her  acquaintance.  She  loathed 
its  atmosphere  of  petty  vice  and  petty  jealousy  and  petty  art. 
Yet  she  always  called  in  again,  when  she  was  in  town.  It 
was  as  if  she  had  to  return  to  this  small,  slow,  central  whirl- 
pool of  disintegration  and  dissolution;   just  give  it  a  look. 

She  sat  with  Gerald  drinking  some  sweetish  liqueur,  and 
staring  with  black,  sullen  looks  at  the  various  groups  of  peo- 
ple at  the  tables.  She  would  greet  nobody,  but  young  men 
nodded  to  her  frequently,  with  a  kind  of  sneering  familiarity. 
She  cut  them  all.  And  it  gave  her  pleasure  to  sit  there, 
cheeks  flushed,  eyes  black  and  sullen,  seeing  them  all  objec- 
tively, as  put  away  from  her,  like  creatures  in  some  menagerie 
of  apish  degraded  souls.  God,  what  a  foul  crew  they  were! 
Her  blood  beat  black  and  thick  in  her  veins  with  rage  and 
loathing.  Yet  she  must  sit  and  watch,  watch.  One  or  two 
people  came  to  speak  to  her.  From  every  side  of  the  Cafe, 
eyes  turned  half  furtively,  half  jeeringly  at  her,  men  looking 
over  her  shoulders,  women  under  their  hats. 

The  old  crowd  was  there,  Carlyon  in  his  corner  with  his 
pupils  and  his  girl,  Halliday  and  Libidnikov  and  the  Pussum 
— they  were  all  there.     Gudrun  watched  Gerald.     She  watched 
his  eyes  linger  a  moment  on  Halliday,  on  Halliday's  party. 
These  last  were  on  the  look-out — they  nodded  to  him,  he 

424 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  425 

nodded  again.  They  giggled  and  whispered  among  them- 
selves. Gerald  watched  them  with  the  steady  twinkle  in  his 
eyes.     They  were  urging  the  Pussum  to  something. 

She  at  last  rose.  She  was  wearing  a  curious  dress  of  dark 
silk,  splashed  and  spattered  with  different  colours,  a  curious 
motley  effect.  She  was  thinner,  her  eyes  were  perhaps  hotter, 
more  disintegrated.  Otherwise  she  was  just  the  same.  Ger- 
ald watched  her  with  the  same  steady  twinkle  in  his  eyes  as 
she  came  across.     She  held  out  her  thin  brown  hand  to  him. 

"How  are  you?"  she  said. 

He  shook  hands  with  her,  but  remained  seated,  and  let 
her  stand  near  him,  against  the  table.  She  nodded  blackly 
to  Gudrun,  whom  she  did  not  know  to  speak  to,  but  well 
enough  by  sight  and  reputation. 

"I  am  very  well,"  said  Gerald.     "And  you?" 

"Oh  I'm  all  wight.     What  about  Wupert?" 

"Rupert?     He's  very  well,  too." 

"Yes,  I  don't  mean  that.  What  about  him  being  mar- 
ried?" 

"Oh — yes,  he  is  married." 

The  Pussum's  eyes  had  a  hot  flash. 

"Oh,  he's  weally  bwought  it  off  then,  has  he?  When  was 
he  married?" 

"A  week  or  two  ago." 

"Weally!     He's  never  written." 

"No?" 

"No.     Don't  you  think  it's  too  bad?" 

This  last  was  in  a  tone  of  challenge.  The  Pussum  let  it  be 
known  by  her  tone,  that  she  was  aware  of  Gudrun's  listening. 

"I  suppose  he  didn't  feel  like  it,"  replied  Gerald. 

"But  why  didn't  he?"  pursued  the  Pussum. 

This  was  received  in  silence.  There  was  an  ugly,  mock- 
ing persistence  in  the  small,  beautiful  figure  of  the  depraved 
girl,  as  she  stood  near  Birkin. 

"Are  you  staying  in  town  long?"  she  asked. 

"To-night  only." 

"Oh,  only  to-night.  Are  you  coming  over  to  speak  to 
Julius?" 

"Not  to-night." 


426  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Oh  very  well.  I'll  tell  him  then."  Then  came  her  touch 
of  diablerie.     "You're  looking  awf'lly  fit." 

"Yes — I  feel  it."  Gerald  was  quite  calm  and  easy,  a 
spark  of  satiric  amusement  in  his  eye. 

"Are  you  having  a  good  time?" 

This  was  a  direct  blow  for  Gudrun,  spoken  in  a  level, 
toneless  voice  of  callous  ease. 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  quite  colourlessly. 

"I'm  awf'lly  sorry  you  aren't  coming  round  to  the  flat. 
You  aren't  very  faithful  to  your  fwiends." 

"Not  very,"  he  said. 

She  nodded  them  both  "Good-night,"  and  went  back  slowly 
to  her  own  set.  Gudrun  watched  her  curious  walk,  stiff  and 
jerking  at  the  loins.  They  heard  her  level,  toneless  voice  dis- 
tinctly. 

"He  won't  come  over; — he  is  otherwise  engaged,"  it  said. 
There  was  more  laughter  and  lowered  voices  and  mockery  at 
the  table. 

"Is  she  a  friend  of  yours?"  said  Gudrun,  looking  calmly  at 
Gerald. 

"I've  stayed  at  Halliday's  flat  with  Birkin,"  he  said, 
meeting  her  slow,  calm  eyes.  And  she  knew  that  the  Pus- 
sum  was  one  of  his  mistresses — and  he  knew  she  knew. 

She  looked  round,  and  called  for  the  waiter.  She  wanted 
an  iced  cocktail,  of  all  things.  This  amused  Gerald — he  won- 
dered what  was  up. 

The  Halliday  party  was  tipsy,  and  malicious.  They  were 
talking  out  loudly  about  Birkin,  ridiculing  him  on  every  point, 
particularly  on  his  marriage. 

"Oh,  don't  make  me  think  of  Birkin,"  Halliday  was  squeal- 
ing. "He  makes  me  perfectly  sick.  He  is  as  bad  as  Jesus. 
'Lord,  what  must  I  do  to  be  saved?'  " 

He  giggled  to  himself  tipsily. 

"Do  you  remember,"  came  the  quick  voice  of  the  Russian, 
"the  letters  he  used  to  send.     'Desire  is  holy — '  " 

"Oh  yes!"  cried  Halliday.  "Oh,  how  perfectly  splendid. 
Why,  I've  got  one  in  my  pocket.     I'm  sure  I  have." 

He  took  out  various  papers  from  his  pocket-book. 

"I'm  sure  I've — hie!     Oh  dear! — got  one." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  427 

Gerald  and  Gudrun  were  watching  absorbedly. 

"Oh  yes,  how  perfectly — hie! — splendid!  Don't  make  me 
laugh,  Pussum,  it  gives  me  the  hiccup.  Hie! — "  They  all 
giggled. 

"What  did  he  say  in  that  one?"  the  Pussum  asked,  lean- 
ing forward,  her  dark,  soft  hair  falling  and  swinging  against 
her  face.  There  was  something  curiously  indecent,  obscene, 
about  her  small,  longish,  dark  skull,  particularly  when  the 
ears  showed. 

"Wait — oh  do  wait!  No-o,  I  won't  give  it  to  you,  I'll 
read  it  aloud.  I'll  read  you  the  choice  bits — hie!  Oh  dear! 
Do  you  think  if  I  drink  water  it  would  take  off  this  hiccup? 
Hie!     Oh,  I  feel  perfectly  helpless." 

"Isn't  that  the  letter  about  uniting  the  dark  and  the  light 
— and  the  Flux  of  Corruption?"  asked  Maxim,  in  his  precise, 
quick  voice. 

"I  believe  so,"  said  the  Pussum. 

"Oh  is  it?  I'd  forgotten — hie! — it  was  that  one,"  Halli- 
day  said,  opening  the  letter.  "Hie!  Oh  yes.  How  perfectly 
splendid !  This  is  one  of  the  best.  'There  is  a  phase  in  every 
race — '  "  he  read  in  the  sing-song,  slow,  distinct  voice  of  a 
clergyman  reading  the  Scriptures,  "  'when  the  desire  for  de- 
struction overcomes  every  other  desire.  In  the  individual, 
this  desire  is  ultimately  a  desire  for  destruction  in  the  self — 
hie! — "  he  paused  and  looked  up. 

"I  hope  he's  going  ahead  with  the  destruction  of  himself," 
said  the  quick  voice  of  the  Russian.  Halliday  giggled,  and 
lolled  his  head  back,  vaguely. 

"There's  not  much  to  destroy  in  him,"  said  the  Pussum. 
"He's  so  thin  already,  there's  only  a  fag-end  to  start  on." 

"Oh,  isn't  it  beautiful?  I  love  reading  it!  I  believe  it 
has  cured  my  hiccup!"  squealed  Halliday.  "Do  let  me  go 
on.  'It  is  a  desire  for  the  reduction-process  in  oneself,  a 
reducing  back  to  the  origin,  a  return  along  the  Flux  of  Cor- 
ruption, to  the  original  rudimentary  conditions  of  being — !' 
Oh,  but  I  do  think  it  is  wonderful.  It  almost  supersedes  the 
Bible—" 

"Yes — Flux  of  Corruption,"  said  the  Russian,  "I  remem- 
ber that  phrase." 


428  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

"Oh,  he  was  always  talking  about  Corruption,"  said  the 
Pussum.  "He  must  be  corrupt  himself,  to  have  it  so  much 
on  his  mind." 

"Exactly!"  said  the  Russian. 

"Do  let  me  go  on!  Oh,  this  is  a  perfectly  wonderful 
piece !  But  do  listen  to  this.  'And  in  the  great  retrogression, 
the  reducing  back  of  the  created  body  of  life,  we  get  knowledge, 
and  beyond  knowledge,  the  phosphorescent  ecstasy  of  acute 
sensation.'  Oh,  I  do  think  those  phrases  are  too  absurdly 
wonderful.  Oh,  but  don't  you  think  they  are — they're  nearly 
as  good  as  Jesus. — 'And  if,  Julius,  you  want  this  ecstasy  of 
reduction  with  the  Pussum,  you  must  go  on  till  it  is  fulfilled. 
But  surely  there  is  in  you  also,  somewhere,  the  living  desire 
for  positive  creation,  relationships  in  ultimate  faith,  when  all 
this  process  of  active  corruption,  with  all  its  flowers  of  mud, 
is  transcended,  and  more  or  less  finished — '  I  do  wonder 
what  the  flowers  of  mud  are.  Pussum,  you  are  a  flower  of 
mud." 

"Thank  you — and  what  are  you?" 

"Oh,  I'm  another,  surely,  according  to  this  letter!  We're 
all  flowers  of  mud — Fleurs — hie!  du  mall — It's  perfectly  won- 
derful, Birkin  harrowing  Hell — harrowing  the  Pompadour — 
Hicl" 

"Go  on — go  on,"  said  Maxim.  "What  comes  next?  It's 
really- very  interesting." 

"I  think  it's  awful  cheek  to  write  like  that,"  said  the 
Pussum. 

"Yes — yes,  so  do  I,"  said  the  Russian.  "He  is  a  megalo- 
maniac, of  course,  it  is  a  form  of  religious  mania.  He  thinks 
he  is  the  Saviour  of  man — go  on  reading." 

"  'Surely,'  "  Halliday  intoned,  "  'surely  goodness  and  mercy 
hath  followed  me  all  the  days  of  my  life — '  "  he  broke  off  and 
giggled.  Then  he  began  again,  intoning  like  a  clergyman. 
"  'Surely  there  will  come  an  end  in  us  to  this  desire — for  the 
constant  going  apart, — this  passion  for  putting  asunder — 
everything — ourselves,  reducing  ourselves  part  from  part — 
reacting  in  intimacy  only  for  destruction, — using  sex  as  a 
great  reducing  agent,  reducing  the  two  great  elements  of 
male  and  female  from  their  highly  complex  unity — reducing 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  429 

the  old  ideas,  going  back  to  the  savages  for  our  sensations, 
always  seeking  to  lose  ourselves  in  some  ultimate  black  sensa- 
tion, mindless  and  infinite — burning  only  with  destructive 
fires,  raging  on  with  the  hope  of  being  burnt  out  utterly — '  " 

"I  want  to  go,"  said  Gudrun  to  Gerald,  as  she  signalled  the 
waiter.  Her  eyes  were  flashing,  her  cheeks  were  flushed. 
The  strange  effect  of  Birkin's  letter  read  aloud  in  a  perfect 
clerical  sing-song,  clear  and  resonant,  phrase  by  phrase,  made 
the  blood  mount  into  her  head  as  if  she  were  mad. 

She  rose,  whilst  Gerald  was  paying  the  bill,  and  walked 
over  to  Halliday's  table.     They  all  glanced  up  at  her. 

"Excuse  me,"  she  said.  "Is  that  a  genuine  letter  you  are 
reading?" 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Halliday.     "Quite  genuine." 

"May  I  see?" 

Smiling  foolishly,  he  handed  it  to  her,  as  if  hypnotised. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said. 

And  she  turned  and  walked  out  of  the  Cafe  with  the  letter, 
all  down  the  brilliant  room,  between  the  tables,  in  her  meas- 
ured fashion.  It  was  some  moments  before  anybody  realised 
what  was  happening. 

From  Halliday's  table  came  half  articulate  cries,  then 
somebody  booed,  then  all  the  far  end  of  the  place  began  boo- 
ing after  Gudrun's  retreating  form.  She  was  fashionably 
dressed  in  blackish-green  and  silver,  her  hat  was  brilliant 
green,  like  the  sheen  on  an  insect,  but  the  brim  was  soft  dark 
green,  a  falling  edge  with  fine  silver,  her  coat  was  dark  green, 
brilliantly  glossy,  with  a  high  collar  of  grey  fur,  and  great  fur 
cuffs,  the  edge  of  her  dress  showed  silver  and  black  velvet, 
her  stockings  and  shoes  were  silver  grey.  She  moved  with 
slow,  fashionable  indifference  to  the  door.  The  porter  opened 
obsequiously  for  her,  and,  at  her  nod,  hurried  to  the  edge  of 
the  pavement  and  whistled  for  a  taxi.  The  two  lights  of  a 
vehicle  almost  immediately  curved  round  towards  her,  like 
two  eyes. 

Gerald  had  followed  in  wonder,  amid  all  the  booing,  not 
having  caught  her  misdeed.  He  heard  the  Pussum's  voice 
saying: 

"Go  and  get  it  back  from  her:    I  never  heard  of  such  a 


430  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

thing!  Go  and  get  it  back  from  her.  Tell  Gerald  Crich — 
there  he  goes — go  and  make  him  give  it  up." 

Gudrun  stood  at  the  door  of  the  taxi,  which  the  man  held 
open  for  her. 

"To  the  hotel?"  she  asked,  as  Gerald  came  out  hurriedly. 

"Where  you  like,"  he  answered. 

"Right!"  she  said.  Then  to  the  driver,  "Wagstaff's — 
Barton  Street." 

The  driver  bowed  his  head,  and  put  down  the  flag. 

Gudrun  entered  the  taxi,  with  the  deliberate  cold  move- 
ment of  a  woman  who  is  well-dressed  and  contemptuous  in 
her  soul.  Yet  she  was  frozen  with  overwrought  feelings. 
Gerald  followed  her. 

"You've  forgotten  the  man,"  she  said  coolly,  with  a  slight 
nod  of  her  hat.  Gerald  gave  the  porter  a  shilling.  The  man 
saluted.     They  were  in  motion. 

"What  was  all  the  row  about?"  asked  Gerald,  in  wonder- 
ing excitement. 

"I  walked  away  with  Birkin's  letter,"  she  said,  and  he  saw 
the  crushed  paper  in  her  hand. 

His  eyes  glittered  with  satisfaction. 

"Ah!"  he  said.     "Splendid! — A  set  of  jackasses!" 

"I  could  have  killed  them!"  she  cried  in  passion.  "Dogs! 
— they  are  dogs! — Why  is  Rupert  such  a  fool  as  to  write  such 
letters  to  them?  Why  does  he  give  himself  away  to  such 
canaille?     It's  a  thing  that  cannot  be  borne." 

Gerald  wondered  over  her  strange  passion. 

And  she  could  not  rest  any  longer  in  London.  They  must 
go  by  the  morning  train  from  Charing  Cross.  As  they  drew 
over  the  bridge,  in  the  train,  having  glimpses  of  the  river 
between  the  great  iron  girders,  she  cried: 

"I  feel  I  could  never  see  this  foul  town  again — I  couldn't 
bear  to  come  back  to  it." 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

URSULA  went  on  in  an  unreal  suspense,  the  last  weeks 
before  going  away.  She  was  not  herself, — she  was 
not  anything.  She  was  something  that  is  going  to 
be — soon — soon — very  soon.  But  as  yet,  she  was  only  im- 
manent. 

She  went  to  see  her  parents.  It  was  a  rather  stiff,  sad 
meeting,  more  like  a  verification  of  separateness  than  a  re- 
union. But  they  were  all  vague  and  indefinite  with  one 
another,  stiffened  in  the  fate  that  moved  them  apart. 

She  did  not  really  come  to  until  she  was  on  the  ship  cross- 
ing from  Dover  to  Ostend.  Dimly  she  had  come  down  to 
London  with  Birkin,  London  had  been  a  vagueness,  so  had 
the  train-journey  to  Dover.     It  was  all  like  a  sleep. 

And  now,  at  last,  as  she  stood  in  the  stern  of  the  ship, 
in  a  pitch-dark,  rather  blowy  night,  feeling  the  motion  of  the 
sea,  and  watching  the  small,  rather  desolate  little  lights  that 
twinkled  on  the  shores  of  England,  as  on  the  shores  of  no- 
where, watched  them  sinking  smaller  and  smaller  on  the  pro- 
found and  living  darkness,  she  felt  her  soul  stirring  to  awake 
from  its  anaesthetic  sleep. 

"Let  us  go  forward,  shall  we?"  said  Birkin.  He  wanted 
to  be  at  the  tip  of  their  projection.  So  they  left  off  looking 
at  the  faint  sparks  that  glimmered  out  of  nowhere,  in  the  far 
distance,  called  England,  and  turned  their  faces  to  the  un- 
fathomed  night  in  front. 

They  went  right  to  the  bows  of  the  softly  plunging  vessel. 
In  the  complete  obscurity,  Birkin  found  a  comparatively  shel- 
tered nook,  where  a  great  rope  was  coiled  up.  It  was  quite 
near  the  very  point  of  the  ship,  near  the  black,  unpierced 
space  ahead.  Here  they  sat  down,  folded  together,  folded 
round  with  the  same  rug,  creeping  in  nearer  and  ever  nearer 
to  one  another,  till  it  seemed  they  had  crept  right  into  each 
other,  and  become  one  substance.  It  was  very  cold,  and  the 
darkness  was  palpable. 

431 


432  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

One  of  the  ship's  crew  came  along  the  deck,  dark  as  the 
darkness,  not  really  visible.  They  then  made  out  the  faintest 
pallor  of  his  face.  He  felt  their  presence,  and  stopped,  un- 
sure— then  bent  forward.  When  his  face  was  near  them,  he 
saw  the  faint  pallor  of  their  faces.  Then  he  withdrew  like  a 
phantom.       And    they    watched    him    without    making   any 


They  seemed  to  fall  away  into  the  profound  darkness. 
There  was  no  sky,  no  earth,  only  one  unbroken  darkness,  into 
which,  with  a  soft,  sleeping  motion,  they  seemed  to  fall  like 
one  closed  seed  of  life  falling  through  dark,  fathomless  space. 

They  had  forgotten  where  they  were,  forgotten  all  that 
was  and  all  that  had  been,  conscious  only  in  their  heart,  and 
there  conscious  only  of  this  pure  trajectory  through  the  sur- 
passing darkness.  The  ship's  prow  cleaved  on,  with  a  faint 
noise  of  cleavage,  into  the  complete  night,  without  knowing, 
without  seeing,  only  surging  on. 

In  Ursula  the  sense  of  the  unrealised  world  ahead  triumphed 
over  everything.  In  the  midst  of  this  profound  darkness, 
there  seemed  to  glow  on  her  heart  the  effulgence  of  a  paradise 
unknown  and  unrealised.  Her  heart  was  full  of  the  most 
wonderful  light,  golden  like  honey  of  darkness,  sweet  like  the 
warmth  of  day,  a  light  which  was  not  shed  on  the  world,  only 
on  the  unknown  paradise  towards  which  she  was  going,  a 
sweetness  of  habitation,  a  delight  of  living  quite  unknown, 
but  hers  infallibly.  In  her  transport  she  lifted  her  face  sud- 
denly to  him,  and  he  touched  it  with  his  lips.  So  cold,  so 
fresh,  so  sea-clear  her  face  was,  it  was  like  kissing  a  flower 
that  grows  near  the  surf. 

But  he  did  not  know  the  ecstasy  of  bliss  in  fore-knowledge 
that  she  knew.  To  him,  the  wonder  of  this  transit  was  over- 
whelming. He  was  falling  through  a  gulf  of  infinite  darkness, 
like  a  meteorite  plunging  across  the  chasm  between  the  worlds. 
The  world  was  torn  in  two,  and  he  was  plunging  like  an  unlit 
star  through  the  ineffable  rift.  What  was  beyond  was  not 
yet  for  him.      He  was  overcome  by  the  trajectory. 

In  a  trance  he  lay  enfolding  Ursula  round  about.  His 
face  was  against  her  fine,  fragile  hair,  he  breathed  its  fragrance 
with  the  sea  and  the  profound  night.      And  his  soul  was  at 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  438 

peace;  yielded,  as  he  fell  into  the  unknown.  This  was  the 
first  time  that  an  utter  and  absolute  peace  had  entered  his 
heart,  now,  in  this  final  transit  out  of  life. 

When  there  came  some  stir  on  the  deck,  they  roused.  They 
stood  up.  How  stiff  and  cramped  they  were,  in  the  night-time! 
And  yet  the  paradisal  glow  on  her  heart,  and  the  unutterable 
peace  of  darkness  in  his,  this  was  the  all-in-all. 

They  stood  up  and  looked  ahead.  Low  lights  were  seen 
down  the  darkness.  This  was  the  world  again.  It  was  not 
the  bliss  of  her  heart,  nor  the  peace  of  his.  It  was  the  super- 
ficial unreal  world  of  fact.  Yet  not  quite  the  old  world.  For 
the  peace  and  the  bliss  in  their  hearts  was  enduring. 

Strange,  and  desolate  above  all  things,  like  disembarking 
from  the  Styx  into  the  desolated  underworld,  was  this  landing 
at  night.  There  was  the  raw,  half-lighted,  covered-in  vast- 
ness  of  the  dark  place,  boarded  and  hollow  underfoot,  with  only 
desolation  everywhere.  Ursula  had  caught  sight  of  the  big, 
pallid,  mystic  letters  "OSTEND,"  standing  in  the  darkness. 
Everybody  was  hurrying  with  a  blind,  insect-like  intentness 
through  the  dark  grey  air,  porters  were  calling  in  un-English 
English,  then  trotting  with  heavy  bags,  their  colourless  blouses 
looking  ghostly  as  they  disappeared;  Ursula  stood  at  a  long, 
low,  zinc-covered  barrier,  along  with  hundreds  of  other  spec- 
tral people,  and  all  the  way  down  the  vast,  raw  darkness  was 
this  low  stretch  of  open  bags  and  spectral  people,  whilst,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  barrier,  pallid  officials  in  peaked  caps  and 
moustaches  were  turning  the  underclothing  in  the  bags,  then 
scrawling  a  chalk-mark. 

It  was  done.  Birkin  snapped  the  hand  bags,  off  they 
went,  the  porter  coming  behind.  They  were  through  a  great 
doorway,  and  in  the  open  night  again — ah,  a  railway  platform! 
Voices  were  still  calling  in  inhuman  agitation  through  the 
dark-grey  air,  spectres  were  running  along  the  darkness  be- 
tween the  train. 

"Kdln — Berlin."  Ursula  made  out  on  the  boards  hung  on 
the  high  train  on  one  side. 

"Here  we  are,"  said  Birkin.  And  on  her  side  she  saw: 
"ELSASS-LOTHRINGEN-Luxembourg,  Metz— BASEL." 

"That  was  it,  Basle!" 


434  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

The  porter  came  up. 

"A  Bale — deuxieme  classe? — Voila."  And  he  clambered 
into  the  high  train.  They  followed.  The  compartments  were 
already  some  of  them  taken.  But  many  were  dim  and  empty. 
The  luggage  was  stowed,  the  porter  was  tipped. 

"Nous  avons  encore?"  said  Birkin,  looking  at  his  watch  and 
at  the  porter. 

"Encore  une  demi-heure."  With  which,  in  his  blue  blouse, 
he  disappeared.      He  was  ugly  and  insolent. 

"Come,"  said  Birkin.     "It  is  cold.     Let  us  eat." 

There  was  a  coffee-wagon  on  the  platform.  They  drank 
hot,  watery  coffee,  and  ate  the  long  rolls,  split,  with  ham 
between,  which  were  such  a  wide  bite  that  it  almost  dislocated 
Ursula's  jaw;  and  they  walked  beside  the  high  trains.  It 
was  all  so  strange,  so  extremely  desolate,  like  the  underworld, 
grey,  grey,  dirt  grey,  desolate,  forlorn,  nowhere — grey,  dreary 
nowhere. 

At  last  they  were  moving  through  the  night.  In  the 
darkness  Ursula  made  out  the  flat  fields,  the  wet  flat  dreary 
darkness  of  the  Continent.  They  pulled  up  surprisingly  soon 
— Bruges!  Then  on  through  the  level  darkness,  with  glimpses 
of  sleeping  farms  and  thin  poplar  trees  and  deserted  high- 
roads. She  sat  dismayed,  hand  in  hand  with  Birkin.  He 
pale,  immobile  like  a  revenant  himself,  looked  sometimes  out 
of  the  window,  sometimes  closed  his  eyes.  Then  his  eyes 
opened  again,  dark  as  the  darkness  outside. 

A  flash  of  a  few  lights  on  the  darkness — Ghent  station! 
A  few  more  spectres  moving  outside  on  the  platform — then 
the  bell — then  motion  again  through  the  level  darkness. 
Ursula  saw  a  man  with  a  lantern  come  out  of  a  farm  by  the 
railway,  and  cross  to  the  dark  farm-buildings.  She  thought 
of  the  marsh,  the  old,  intimate  farm-life  at  Cossethay.  My 
God,  how  far  was  she  projected  from  her  childhood,  how  far 
was  she  still  to  go?  In  one  lifetime  one  travelled  through 
aK)ns.  The  great  chasm  of  memory  from  her  childhood  in 
the  intimate  country  surroundings  of  Cossethay  and  the 
Marsh  Farm — she  remembered  the  servant  Tilly,  who  used 
to  give  her  bread  and  butter  sprinkled  with  brown  sugar,  in 
the  old  living-room  where  the  grandfather  clock  had  two  pink 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  435 

roses  in  a  basket  painted  above  the  figures  on  the  face — and 
now  when  she  was  travelling  into  the  unknown  with  Birkin, 
an  utter  stranger — was  so  great,  that  it  seemed  she  had  no 
identity,  that  the  child  she  had  been,  playing  in  Cossethay 
churchyard,  was  a  little  creature  of  history,  not  really  herself. 

They  were  at  Brussels — half  an  hour  for  breakfast.  They 
got  down.  On  the  great  station  clock  it  said  six  o'clock. 
They  had  coffee  and  rolls  and  honey  in  the  vast  desert  re- 
freshment room,  so  dreary,  always  so  dreary,  dirty,  so  spa- 
cious, such  desolation  of  space.  But  she  washed  her  face  and 
hands  in  hot  water,  and  combed  her  hair — that  was  a  blessing. 

Soon  they  were  in  the  train  again  and  moving  on.  The 
greyness  of  dawn  began.  There  were  several  people  in  the 
compartment,  large  florid  Belgian  business-men  with  long, 
brown  beards,  talking  incessantly  in  an  ugly  French  she  was 
too  tired  to  follow. 

It  seemed  the  train  ran  by  degrees  out  of  the  darkness 
into  a  faint  light,  then  beat  after  beat  into  the  day.  Ah, 
how  weary  it  was!  Faintly,  the  trees  showed,  like  shadows. 
Then  a  house,  white,  had  a  curious  distinctness.  How  was 
it?  Then  she  saw  a  village — there  were  always  houses  pass- 
ing. 

This  was  an  old  world  she  was  still  journeying  through, 
winter-heavy  and  dreary.  There  was  plough-land  and  pas- 
ture, and  copses  of  bare  trees,  copses  of  bushes,  and  home- 
steads naked  and  work-bare.  No  new  earth  had  come  to 
pass. 

She  looked  at  Birkin's  face.  It  was  white  and  still  and 
eternal,  too  eternal.  She  linked  her  fingers  imploringly  in 
his,  under  the  cover  of  her  rug.  His  fingers  responded,  his 
eyes  looked  back  at  her.  How  dark,  like  a  night,  his  eyes 
were,  like  another  world  beyond!  Oh,  if  he  were  the  world 
as  well,  if  only  the  world  were  he!  If  only  he  could  call  a 
world  into  being,  that  should  be  their  own  world! 

The  Belgians  left,  the  train  ran  on,  through  Luxembourg, 
through  Alsace-Lorraine,  through  Metz.  But  she  was  blind, 
she  could  see  no  more.     Her  soul  did  not  look  out. 

They  came  at  last  to  Basle,  to  the  hotel.  It  was  all  a 
drifting  trance,  from  which  she  never  came  to.      They  went 


436  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

out  in  the  morning,  before  the  train  departed.  She  saw  the 
street,  the  river,  she  stood  on  the  bridge.  But  it  all  meant 
nothing.  She  remembered  some  shops — one  full  of  pictures, 
one  with  orange  velvet  and  ermine.  But  what  did  these 
signify  ? — nothing. 

She  was  not  at  ease  till  they  were  in  the  train  again.  Then 
she  was  relieved.  So  long  as  they  were  moving  onwards,  she 
was  satisfied.  They  came  to  Zurich,  then,  before  very  long, 
ran  under  the  mountains,  that  were  deep  in  snow.  At  last 
she  was  drawing  near.      This  was  the  other  world  now. 

Innsbruck  was  wonderful,  deep  in  snow,  and  evening. 
They  drove  in  an  open  sledge  over  the  snow;  the  train  had 
been  so  hot  and  stifling.  And  the  hotel,  with  the  golden 
light  glowing  under  the  porch,  seemed  like  a  home. 

They  laughed  with  pleasure  when  they  were  in  the  hall. 
The  place  seemed  full  and  busy.  « 

"Do  you  know  if  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Crich — English — from 
Paris,  have  arrived?"  Birkin  asked  in  German. 

The  waiter  reflected  a  moment,  and  was  just  going  to 
answer,  when  Ursula  caught  sight  of  Gudrun  sauntering  down 
the  stairs,  wearing  her  dark  glossy  coat,  with  grey  fur. 

"Gudrun!  Gudrun!"  she  called,  waving  up  the  well  of 
the  staircase.      "Shu-hu!" 

Gudrun  looked  over  the  rail,  and  immediately  lost  her 
sauntering,  diffident  air.     Her  eyes  flashed. 

"Really — Ursula!"  she  cried.  And  she  began  to  move 
downstairs  as  Ursula  ran  up.  They  met  at  a  turn  and  kissed 
with  laughter  and  exclamations  inarticulate  and  stirring. 

"But!"  cried  Gudrun,  mortified.  "We  thought  it  was  to- 
morrow you  were  coming!     I  wanted  to  come  to  the  station." 

"No,  we've  come  to-day!"  cried  Ursula.  "Isn't  it  lovely 
here?" 

"Adorable!"  said  Gudrun.  "Gerald's  just  gone  out  to 
get  something.      Ursula,  aren't  you  fearfully  tired?" 

"No,  not  so  very.      But  I  look  a  filthy  sight,  don't  I?" 

"No,  you  don't.  You  look  almost  perfectly  fresh.  I  like 
that  fur  cap  immensely!"  She  glanced  over  Ursula,  who  wore 
a  big  soft  coat  with  a  collar  of  deep,  soft,  blond  fur,  and  a 
soft  blond  cap  of  fur. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  437 

"And  you!"  cried  Ursula.  "What  do  you  think  you  look 
like?" 

Gudrun  assumed  an  unconcerned,  expressionless  face. 

"Do  you  like  it?"  she  said. 

"It's  very  fine!"  cried  Ursula,  perhaps  with  a  touch  of 
satire. 

"Go  up — or  come  down,"  said  Birkin.  For  there  the  sis- 
ters stood,  Gudrun  with  her  hand  on  Ursula's  arm,  on  the 
turn  of  the  stairs  half  way  to  the  first  landing,  blocking  the 
way,  and  affording  full  entertainment  to  the  whole  of  the  hall 
below,  from  the  door  porter  to  the  plump  Jew  in  black  clothes. 

The   two   young   women   slowly   mounted,   followed   by 
Birkin  and  the  waiter. 

"First  floor?"  asked  Gudrun,  looking  back  over  her  shoulder. 

"Second,  Madam — the  lift!"  the  waiter  replied.  And  he 
darted  to  the  elevator  to  forestall  the  two  women.  But  they 
ignored  him,  as,  chattering  without  heed,  they  set  to  mount 
the  second  flight.     Rather  chagrined,  the  waiter  followed. 

It  was  curious,  the  delight  of  the  sisters  in  each  other, 
at  this  meeting.  It  was  as  if  they  met  in  exile,  and  united 
their  solitary  forces  against  all  the  world.  Birkin  looked 
on  with  some  mistrust  and  wonder. 

When  they  had  bathed  and  changed,  Gerald  came  in. 
He  looked  shining  like  the  sun  on  frost. 

"Go  with  Gerald  and  smoke,"  said  Ursula  to  Birkin. 
"Gudrun  and  I  want  to  talk." 

Then  the  sisters  sat  in  Gudrun's  bedroom,  and  talked 
clothes,  and  experiences.  Gudrun  told  Ursula  the  experience 
of  the  Birkin  letter  in  the  cafe.  Ursula  was  shocked  and 
frightened. 

"Where  is  the  letter?"   she  asked. 

"I  kept  it,"  said  Gudrun. 

"You'll  give  it  to  me,  won't  you?"  she  said. 

But  Gudrun  was  silent  for  some  moments,  before  she 
replied: 

"Do  you  really  want  it,  Ursula?" 

"I  want  to  read  it,"  said  Ursula. 

"Certainly,"  said  Gudrun. 

Even  now,  she  could  not  admit,  to  Ursula,  that  she  wanted 


438  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

to  keep  it,  as  a  memento,  or  a  symbol.  But  Ursula  knew, 
and  was  not  pleased.      So  the  subject  was  switched  off. 

"What  did  you  do  in  Paris?"   asked  Ursula. 

"Oh,"  said  Gudrun  laconically — "the  usual  things.  We 
had  a  fine  party  one  night  in  Fanny  Rath's  Studio." 

"Did  you?  And  you  and  Gerald  were  there!  Who  else? 
Tell  me  about  it." 

"Well,"  said  Gudrun.  "There's  nothing  particular  to 
tell.  You  know  Fanny  is  frightfully  in  love  with  that  painter, 
Billy  Macfarlane.  He  was  there — so  Fanny  spared  nothing, 
she  spent  very  freely.  It  was  really  remarkable!  Of  course, 
everybody  got  fearfully  drunk — but  in  an  interesting  way, 
not  like  that  filthy  London  crowd.  The  fact  is  these  were  all 
people  that  matter,  which  makes  all  the  difference.  There 
was  a  Roumanian,  a  fine  chap.  He  got  completely  drunk, 
and  climbed  to  the  top  of  a  high  studio  ladder,  and  gave  the 
most  marvellous  address — really,  Ursula,  it  was  wonderful! 
He  began  in  French — La  vie,  c'est  une  affaire  d'ames  imperiales 
— in  a  most  beautiful  voice — he  was  a  fine-looking  chap — 
but  he  had  got  into  Roumanian  before  he  had  finished,  and 
not  a  soul  understood.  But  Donald  Gilchrist  was  worked 
to  a  frenzy.  He  dashed  his  glass  to  the  ground,  and  declared, 
by  God,  he  was  glad  he  had  been  born,  by  God,  it  was  a  miracle 
to  be  alive.  And  do  you  know,  Ursula,  so  it  was — "  Gud- 
run laughed  rather  hollowly. 

"But  how  was  Gerald  among  them  all?"   asked  Ursula. 

"Gerald!  Oh,  my  word,  he  came  out  like  a  dandelion  in 
the  sun!  He's  a  whole  saturnalia  in  himself,  once  he  is  roused. 
I  shouldn't  like  to  say  whose  waist  his  arm  did  not  go  round. 
Really,  Ursula,  he  seems  to  reap  the  women  like  a  harvest: 
there  wasn't  one  that  would  have  resisted  him.  It  was  too 
amazing!   Can  you  understand  it?" 

Ursula  reflected,  and  a  dancing  light  came  into  her  eyes. 

"Yes,"  she  said.      "I  can.      He  is  such  a  whole-hogger." 

"Whole-hogger!  I  should  think  so!"  exclaimed  Gudrun. 
"But  it  is  true,  Ursula,  every  woman  in  the  room  was  ready 
to  surrender  to  him.  Chanticler  isn't  in  it — even  Fanny 
Rath,  who  is  genuinely  in  love  with  Billy  Macfarlane!  I 
never  was  more  amazed  in  my  life!  And  you  know,  afterwards 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  439 

— I  felt  I  was  a  whole  roomful  of  women.  I  was  no  more  my- 
self to  him,  than  I  was  Queen  Victoria.  I  was  a  whole  room- 
ful of  women  at  once.  It  was  most  astounding!  But  my  eye, 
I'd  caught  a  Sultan  that  time — " 

Gudrun's  eyes  were  flashing,  her  cheek  was  hot,  she  looked 
strange,  exotic,  satiric.  Ursula  was  fascinated  at  once — 
and  yet  uneasy. 

They  had  to  get  ready  for  dinner.  Gudrun  came  down 
in  a  daring  gown  of  vivid  green  silk  and  tissue  of  gold,  with 
green  velvet  bodice  and  a  strange  black-and-white  band 
round  her  hair.  She  was  really  brilliantly  beautiful  and  every- 
body noticed  her.  Gerald  was  in  that  full-blooded,  gleaming 
state  when  he  was  most  handsome.  Birkin  watched  them 
with  quick,  laughing,  half-sinister  eyes,  Ursula  quite  lost  her 
head.  There  seemed  a  spell,  almost  a  blinding  spell,  cast 
round  their  table,  as  if  they  were  lighted  up  more  strongly 
than  the  rest  of  the  dining-room. 

"Don't  you  love  to  be  in  this  place?  cried  Gudrun.  "Isn't 
the  snow  wonderful?  Do  you  notice  how  it  exalts  everything? 
It  is  simply  marvelous.  One  really  does  feel  ubermenschlich 
— more  than  human."  , 

"One  does,"  cried  Ursula.  "But  isn't  that  partly  the 
being  out  of  England?" 

"Oh,  of  course,"  cried  Gudrun.  "One  could  never  feel 
like  this  in  England,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  damper 
is  never  lifted  off  one,  there.  It  is  quite  impossible  really  to 
let  go,  in  England,  of  that  I  am  assured." 

And  she  turned  again  to  the  food  she  was  eating.  She 
was  fluttering  with  vivid  intensity. 

"It's  quite  true,"  said  Gerald,  "it  never  is  quite  the  same 
in  England.  But  perhaps  we  don't  want  it  to  be — perhaps 
it's  like  bringing  the  light  a  little  too  near  the  powder- 
magazine,  to  let  go  altogether,  in  England.  One  is  afraid 
what  might  happen,  if  everybody  else  let  go." 

"My  God!"  cried  Gudrun.  "But  wouldn't  it  be  wonder- 
ful, if  all  England  did  suddenly  go  off  like  a  display  of  fire- 
works." 

"It  couldn't,"  said  Ursula.  "They  are  all  too  damp, 
the  powder  is  damp  in  them." 


440  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"I'm  not  so  sure  of  that,"  said  Gerald. 

"Nor  I,"  said  Birkin.  "When  the  English  really  begin 
to  go  off,  en  masse,  it'll  be  time  to  shut  your  ears  and  run." 

"They  never  will,"  said  Ursula. 

"We'll  see,"  he  replied. 

"Isn't  it  marvellous,"  said  Gudrun,  "how  thankful  one 
can  be,  to  be  out  of  one's  country.  I  cannot  believe  myself, 
I  am  so  transported,  the  moment  I  set  foot  on  a  foreign  shore. 
I  say  to  myself  'Here  steps  a  new  creature  into  life.'  " 

"Don't  be  too  hard  on  poor  old  England,"  said  Gerald. 
"Though  we  curse  it,  we  love  it  really." 

To  Ursula,  there  seemed  a  fund  of  cynicism  in  these  words. 

"We  may,"  said  Birkin.  "But  it's  a  damnably  uncom- 
fortable love:  like  a  love  for  an  aged  parent  who  suffers 
horribly  from  a  complication  of  diseases,  for  which  there  is 
no  hope." 

Gudrun  looked  at  him  with  dilated  dark  eyes. 

"You  think  there  is  no  hope?"  she  asked,  in  her  pertinent 
fashion. 

But  Birkin  backed  away.  He  would  not  answer  such  a 
question. 

"Any  hope  of  England's  becoming  real?  God  knows. 
It's  a  great  actual  unreality  now,  an  aggregation  into  un- 
reality.— It  might  be  real,  if  there  were  no  Englishmen." 

"You  think  the  English  will  have  to  disappear?"  per- 
sisted Gudrun.  It  was  strange,  her  pointed  interest  in  his 
answer.  It  might  have  been  her  own  fate  she  was  inquiring 
after.  Her  dark,  dilated  eyes  rested  on  Birkin,  as  if  she  could 
conjure  the  truth  of  the  future  out  of  him,  as  out  of  some  in- 
strument of  divination. 

He  was  pale.     Then,  reluctantly,  he  answered: 

"Well — what  else  is  in  front  of  them,  but  disappearance? 
— They've  got  to  disappear  from  their  own  special  brand  of 
Englishness,  anyhow." 

Gudrun  watched  him  as  if  in  a  hypnotic  state,  her  eyes 
wide  and  fixed  on  him. 

"But  in  what  way  do  you  mean,  disappear? — "she  per- 
sisted. 

"Yes,  do  you  mean  a  change  of  heart?"  put  in  Gerald. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  441 

"I  don't  mean  anything,  why  should  I?"  said  Birkin. 
"I'm  an  Englishman,  and  I've  paid  the  price  of  it.  I  can't 
talk  about  England — I  can  only  speak  for  myself." 

"Yes,"  said  Gudrun  slowly,  "You  love  England  immensely, 
immensely,  Rupert." 

"And  leave  her,"  he  replied. 

"No,  not  for  good.  You'll  come  back,"  said  Gerald, 
nodding  sagely. 

"They  say  the  lice  crawl  off  a  dying  body,"  said  Birkin, 
with  a  glare  of  bitterness.      "So  I  leave  England." 

"Ah,  but  you'll  come  back,"  said  Gudrun,  with  a  sardonic 
smile. 

"Tant  pis  pour  moi,"  he  replied. 

"Isn't  he  angry  with  his  mother  country!"  laughed  Ger- 
ald, amused. 

"Ah,  a  patriot!"  said  Gudrun,  with  something  like  a  sneer. 

Birkin  refused  to  answer  any  more. 

Gudrun  watched  him  still  for  a  few  seconds.  Then  she 
turned  away.  It  was  finished,  her  spell  of  divination  in  him. 
She  felt  already  purely  cynical.  She  looked  at  Gerald.  He 
was  wonderful  like  a  piece  of  radium  to  her.  She  felt  she 
could  consume  herself  and  know  all,  by  means  of  this  fatal, 
living  metal.  She  smiled  to  herself  at  her  fancy.  And 
what  would  she  do  with  herself,  when  she  had  destroyed  her- 
self? For  if  spirit,  if  integral  being  is  destructible,  Matter  is 
indestructible. 

He  was  looking  bright  and  abstracted,  puzzled,  for  the 
moment.  She  stretched  out  her  beautiful  arm,  with  its 
fluff  of  green  tulle,  and  touched  his  chin  with  her  subtle, 
artist's  fingers. 

"What  are  they  then?"  she  asked,  with  a  strange,  knowing 
smile. 

"What?"  he  replied,  his  eyes  suddenly  dilating  with 
wonder. 

"Your  thoughts." 

Gerald  looked  like  a  man  coming  awake. 

"I  think  I  had  none,"  he  said. 

"Really!"   she  said,  with  grave  laughter  in  her  voice. 

And  to  Birkin  it  was  as  if  she  killed  Gerald,  with  that  touch. 


442  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Ah  but,"  cried  Gudrun,  "let  us  drink  to  Britannia — 
let  us  drink  to  Britannia." 

It  seemed  there  was  wild  despair  in  her  voice.  Gerald 
laughed,  and  filled  the  glasses. 

"I  think  Rupert  means,"  he  said,  "that  nationally  all 
Englishmen  must  die,  so  that  they  can  exist  individually 
and  — " 

"Super-nationally — "  put  in  Gudrun,  with  a  slight  ironic 
grimace,  raising  her  glass. 

The  next  day,  they  descended  at  the  tiny  railway  station 
of  Hohenhausen,  at  the  end  of  the  tiny  valley  railway.  It 
was  snow  everywhere,  a  white,  perfect  cradle  of  snow,  new 
and  frozen,  sweeping  up  on  either  side,  black  crags,  and  white 
sweeps  of  silver  towards  the  blue  pale  heavens. 

As  they  stepped  out  on  the  naked  platform,  with  only 
snow  around  and  above,  Gudrun  shrank  as  if  it  chilled  her 
heart. 

"My  God,  Jerry,"  she  said,  turning  to  Gerald  with  sudden 
intimacy,  "you've  done  it  now." 

"What?" 

She  made  a  faint  gesture,  indicating  the  world  on  either 
hand. 

"Look  at  it!" 

She  seemed  afraid  to  go  on.      He  laughed. 

They  were  in  the  heart  of  the  mountains.  From  high 
above,  on  either  side,  swept  down  the  white  fold  of  snow, 
so  that  one  seemed  small  and  tiny  in  a  valley  of  pure  concrete 
heaven,  all  strangely  radiant  and  changeless  and  silent. 

"It  makes  one  feel  so  small  and  alone,"  said  Ursula,  turn- 
ing to  Birkin  and  laying  her  hand  on  his  arm. 

"You're  not  sorry  you've  come,  are  you?"  said  Gerald 
to  Gudrun. 

She  looked  doubtful.  They  went  out  of  the  station 
between  banks  of  snow. 

"Ah,"  said  Gerald,  sniffing  the  air  in  elation,  "this  is  per- 
fect. There's  our  sledge.  We'll  walk  a  bit — we'll  run  up 
the  road." 

Gudrun,  always  doubtful,  dropped  her  heavy  coat  on  the 
sledge,  as  he  did  his,  and  they  set  off.      Suddenly  she  threw 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  443 

up  her  head  and  set  off  scudding  along  the  road  of  snow, 
pulling  her  cap  down  over  her  ears.  Her  blue,  bright  dress 
fluttered  in  the  wind,  her  thick  scarlet  stockings  were  bril- 
liant above  the  whiteness.  Gerald  watched  her:  she  seemed 
to  be  rushing  towards  her  fate,  and  leaving  him  behind.  He 
let  her  get  some  distance,  then,  loosening  his  limbs,  he  went 
after  her. 

Everywhere  was  deep  and  silent  snow.  Great  snow-eaves 
weighed  down  the  broad-roofed  Tyrolese  houses,  that  were 
sunk  to  the  window-sashes  in  snow.  Peasant-women,  full- 
skirted,  wearing  each  a  cross-over  shawl,  and  thick  snow- 
boots,  turned  in  the  way  to  look  at  the  soft,  determined  girl 
running  with  such  heavy  fleetness  from  the  man,  who  was 
overtaking  her,  but  not  gaining  any  power  over  her. 

They  passed  the  inn  with  its  painted  shutters  and  balcony, 
a  few  cottages,  half  buried  in  the  snow;  then  the  snow- 
buried  silent  saw-mill  by  the  roofed  bridge,  which  crossed  the 
hidden  stream,  over  which  they  ran  into  the  very  depth  of 
the  untouched  sheets  of  snow.  It  was  a  silence  and  a  sheer 
whiteness  exhilarating  to  madness.  But  the  perfect  silence 
was  most  terrifying,  isolating  the  soul,  surrounding  the  heart 
with  frozen  air. 

"It's  a  marvellous  place,  for  all  that,"  said  Gudrun,  looking 
into  his  eyes  with  a  strange,  meaning  look.     His  soul  leapt. 

"Good,"  he  said. 

A  fierce  electric  energy  seemed  to  flow  over  all  his  limbs, 
his  muscles  were  surcharged,  his  hands  felt  hard  with  strength. 
They  walked  along  rapidly  up  the  snow-road,  that  was  marked 
by  withered  branches  of  trees  stuck  in  at  intervals.  He  and 
she  were  separate,  like  opposite  poles  of  one  fierce  energy. 
But  they  felt  powerful  enough  to  leap  over  the  confines  of 
life  into  the  forbidden  places,  and  back  again. 

Birkin  and  Ursula  were  running  along  also,  over  the  snow. 
He  had  disposed  of  the  luggage,  and  they  had  a  little  start  of  the 
sledges.  Ursula  was  excited  and  happy,  but  she  kept  turning 
suddenly  to  catch  hold  of  Birkin's  arm,  to  make  sure  of  him. 

"This  is  something  I  never  expected,"  she  said.  "It  is  a 
different  world,  here." 

They  went  on  into  a  snow  meadow.      There  they  were 


444  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

overtaken  by  the  sledge,  that  came  tinkling  through  the  silence. 
It  was  another  mile  before  they  came  upon  Gudrun  and  Ger- 
ald on  the  steep  up-climb,  beside  the  pink,  half-buried  shrine. 

Then  they  passed  into  a  gulley,  where  were  walls  of  black 
rock  and  a  river  filled  with  snow,  and  a  still  blue  sky  above. 
Through  a  covered  bridge  they  went,  drumming  roughly 
over  the  boards,  crossing  the  snow-bed  once  more,  then  slowly 
up  and  up,  the  horses  walking  swiftly,  the  driver  cracking 
his  long  whip  as  he  walked  beside,  and  calling  his  strange  wild 
hue-hue!  the  walls  of  rock  passing  slowly  by,  till  they  emerged 
again  between  slopes  and  masses  of  snow.  Up  and  up, 
gradually  they  went,  through  the  cold  shadow-radiance  of 
the  afternoon,  silenced  by  the  imminence  of  the  mountains, 
the  luminous,  dazing  sides  of  snow  that  rose  above  them  and 
fell  away  beneath. 

They  came  forth  at  last  in  a  little  high  table-land  of  snow, 
where  stood  the  last  peaks  of  snow  like  the  heart  petals  of  an 
open  rose.  In  the  midst  of  the  last  deserted  valleys  of  heaven 
stood  a  lonely  building  with  brown  wooden  walls  and  white 
heavy  roof,  deep  and  deserted  in  the  waste  of  snow,  like  a 
dream.  It  stood  like  a  rock  that  had  rolled  down  from  the 
last  steep  slopes,  a  rock  that  had  taken  the  form  of  a  house, 
and  was  now  half-buried.  It  was  unbelievable  that  one  could 
live  there  uncrushed  by  all  this  terrible  waste  of  whiteness 
and  silence  and  clear,  upper,  ringing  cold. 

Yet  the  sledges  ran  up  in  fine  style,  people  came  to  the 
door  laughing  and  excited,  the  floor  of  the  hostel  rang  hollow, 
the  passage  was  wet  with  snow,  it  was  a  real,  warm  interior. 

The  new-comers  tramped  up  the  bare  wooden  stairs, 
following  the  serving  woman.  Gudrun  and  Gerald  took  the 
first  bedroom.  In  a  moment  they  found  themselves  alone 
in  a  bare,  smallish,  close-shut  room  that  was  all  of  golden- 
coloured  wood,  floor,  walls,  ceiling,  door,  all  of  the  same 
warm  gold  panelling  of  oiled  pine.  There  was  a  window 
opposite  the  door,  but  low  down,  because  the  roof  sloped. 
Under  the  slope  of  the  ceiling  were  the  table  with  wash- 
hand  bowl  and  jug,  and  across,  another  table  with  mirror. 
On  either  side  the  door  were  two  beds  piled  high  with  an 
enormous  blue-checked  overbolster,  enormous. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  445 

This  was  all — no  cupboard,  none  of  the  amenities  of  life. 
Here  they  were  shut  up  together  in  this  cell  of  golden- 
coloured  wood,  with  two  blue-checked  beds.  They  looked 
at  each  other  and  laughed,  frightened  by  this  naked  nearness 
of  isolation. 

A  man  knocked  and  came  in  with  the  luggage.  He  was 
a  sturdy  fellow  with  flattish  cheek-bones,  rather  pale,  and 
with  coarse  fair  moustache.  Gudrun  watched  him  put  down 
the  bags,  in  silence,  then  tramp  heavily  out. 

"It  isn't  too  rough,  is  it?"   Gerald  asked. 

The  bedroom  was  not  very  warm,  and  she  shivered  slightly. 

"It  is  wonderful,"  she  equivocated.  "Look  at  the  colour 
of  this  panelling — it's  wonderful,  like  being  inside  a  nut." 

He  was  standing  watching  her,  feeling  his  short-cut 
moustache,  leaning  back  slightly  and  watching  her  with  his 
keen,  undaunted  eyes,  dominated  by  the  constant  passion, 
that  was  like  a  doom  upon  him. 

She  went  and  crouched  down  in  front  of  the  window, 
curious. 

"Oh,  but  this — !"   she  cried  involuntarily,  almost  in  pain. 

In  front  was  a  valley  shut  in  under  the  sky,  the  last  huge 
slopes  of  snow  and  black  rock,  and  at  the  end,  like  the  navel 
of  the  earth,  a  whitefolded  wall,  and  two  peaks  glimmering 
in  the  late  light.  Straight  in  front  ran  the  cradle  of  silent 
snow,  between  the  great  slopes  that  were  fringed  with  a  little 
roughness  of  pine-trees,  like  hair,  round  the  base.  But  the 
cradle  of  snow  ran  on  to  the  eternal  closing-in,  where  the 
walls  of  snow  and  rock  rose  impenetrable,  and  the  mountain 
peaks  above  were  in  heaven  immediate.  This  was  the  centre, 
the  knot,  the  navel  of  the  world,  where  the  earth  belonged 
to  the  skies,  pure,  unapproachable,  impassable. 

It  filled  Gudrun  with  a  strange  rapture.  She  crouched 
in  front  of  the  window,  clenching  her  face  in  her  hands, 
in  a  sort  of  trance.  At  last  she  had  arrived,  she  had  reached 
her  place.  Here  at  last  she  folded  her  venture  and  settled 
down  like  a  crystal  in  the  navel  of  snow,  and  was  gone. 

Gerald  bent  above  her  and  was  looking  out  over  her 
shoulder.  Already  he  felt  he  was  alone.  She  was  gone. 
She  was  completely  gone,  and  there  was  icy  vapour  round  his 


446  WOMEN  IN  LOVlE 

heart.  He  saw  the  blind  valley,  the  great  cul-de-sac  of  snow 
and  mountain  peaks,  under  the  heaven.  And  there  was  no 
way  out.  The  terrible  silence  and  cold  and  the  glamorous 
whiteness  of  the  dusk  wrapped  him  round,  and  she  remained 
crouching  before  the  window,  as  at  a  shrine,  a  shadow. 

"Do  you  like  it?"  he  asked,  in  a  voice  that  sounded  de- 
tached and  foreign.  At  least  she  might  acknowledge  he  was  with 
her.  But  she  only  averted  her  soft,  mute  face  a  little  from  his 
gaze.  And  he  knew  that  there  were  tears  in  her  eyes,  her  own 
tears,  tears  of  her  strange  religion,  that  put  him  to  nought. 

Quite  suddenly,  he  put  his  hand  under  her  chin  and  lifted 
up  her  face  to  him.  Her  dark  blue  eyes,  in  their  wetness  of 
tears,  dilated  as  if  she  was  startled  in  her  very  soul.  They 
looked  at  him  through  their  tears  in  terror  and  a  little  horror. 
His  light  blue  eyes  were  keen,  small-pupilled  and  unnatural 
in  their  vision.  Her  lips  parted,  as  she  breathed  with 
difficulty. 

The  passion  came  up  in  him,  stroke  after  stroke,  like  the 
ringing  of  a  bronze  bell,  so  strong  and  unflawed  and  indomi- 
table. His  knees  tightened  to  bronze  as  he  hung  above  her 
soft  face,  whose  lips  parted  and  whose  eyes  dilated  in  a  strange 
violation.  In  the  grasp  of  his  hand  her  chin  was  unutterably 
soft  and  silken.  He  felt  strong  as  winter,  his  hands  were 
living  metal,  invincible  and  not  to  be  turned  aside.  His 
heart  rang  like  a  bell  clanging  inside  him. 

He  took  her  up  in  his  arms.  She  was  soft  and  inert, 
motionless.  All  the  while  her  eyes,  in  which  the  tears  had 
not  yet  dried,  were  dilated  as  if  in  a  kind  of  swoon  of  fascina- 
tion and  helplessness.  He  was  superhumanly  strong,  and 
unflawed,  as  if  invested  with  supernatural  force. 

He  lifted  her  close  and  folded  her  against  him.  Her 
softness,  her  inert,  relaxed  weight  lay  against  his  own  sur- 
charged, bronze-like  limbs  in  a  heaviness  of  desirability  that 
would  destroy  him,  if  he  were  not  fulfilled.  She  moved 
convulsively,  recoiling  away  from  him.  His  heart  went  up 
like  a  flame  of  ice,  he  closed  over  her  like  steel.  He  would 
destroy  her  rather  than  be  denied. 

But  the  overweening  power  of  his  body  was  too  much 
for  her.      She  relaxed  again,  and  lay  loose  and  soft,  panting 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  447 

in  a  little  delirium.  And  to  him,  she  was  so  sweet,  she  was 
such  bliss  of  release,  that  he  would  have  suffered  a  whole 
eternity  of  torture  rather  than  forego  one  second  of  this  pang 
of  unsurpassable  bliss. 

"My  God,"  he  said  to  her,  his  face  drawn  and  strange, 
transfigured,  "what  next?" 

She  lay  perfectly  still,  with  a  still,  child-like  face  and  dark 
eyes,  looking  at  him.      She  was  lost,  fallen  right  away. 

"I  shall  always  love  you,"  he  said,  looking  at  her. 

But  she  did  not  hear.  She  lay,  looking  at  him  as  at  some- 
thing she  could  never  understand,  never:  as  a  child  looks 
at  a  grown-up  person,  without  hope  of  understanding,  only 
submitting. 

He  kissed  her,  kissed  her  eyes  shut,  so  that  she  could  not 
look  any  more.  He  wanted  something  now,  some  recognition, 
some  sign,  some  admission.  But  she  only  lay  silent  and 
child-like  and  remote,  like  a  child  that  is  overcome  and  can- 
not understand,  only  feels  lost.  He  kissed  her  again, 
giving  up. 

"Shall  we  go  down  and  have  coffee  and  Kuchen?"  he 
asked. 

The  twilight  was  falling  slate-blue  at  the  window.  She 
closed  her  eyes,  closed  away  the  monotonous  level  of  dead 
wonder,  and  opened  them  again  to  the  every-day  world. 

"Yes,"  she  said  briefly,  regaining  her  will  with  a  click. 
She  went  again  to  the  window.  Blue  evening  had  fallen  over 
the  cradle  of  snow  and  over  the  great  pallid  slopes.  But  in 
the  heaven  the  peaks  of  snow  were  rosy,  glistening  like  trans- 
(■■■nclcnt,  radiant  spikes  of  blossom  in  the  heavenly  upper- 
world,  so  lovely  and  beyond. 

Gudrun  saw  all  their  loveliness,  she  knew  how  immortally 
beautiful  they  were,  great  pistils  of  rose-coloured,  snow-fed 
fire  in  the  blue  twilight  of  the  heaven.  She  could  see  it, 
she  knew  it,  but  she  was  not  of  it.  She  was  divorced,  de- 
barred, a  soul  shut  out. 

With  a  last  look  of  remorse,  she  turned  away,  and  was 
doing  her  hair.  He  had  unstrapped  the  luggage,  and  was 
waiting,  watching  her.  She  knew  he  was  watching  her.  It 
her  a  little  hasty  and  feverish  in  her  precipitation. 


448  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

They  went  downstairs,  both  with  a  strange  other-world 
look  on  their  faces,  and  with  a  glow  in  their  eyes.  They  saw 
Birkin  and  Ursula  sitting  at  the  long  table  in  a  corner,  waiting 
for  them. 

"How  good  and  simple  they  look  together,"  Gudrun 
thought,  jealously.  She  envied  them  some  spontaneity,  a 
childish  sufficiency  to  which  she  herself  could  never  approach. 
They  seemed  such  children  to  her. 

"Such  good  Kranzkuchen?"  cried  Ursula  greedily.  "So 
good!" 

"Right,"  said  Gudrun.  "Can  we  have  Kaffee  mit 
Kranzkuchen!"   she  added  to  the  waiter. 

And  she  seated  herself  on  the  bench  beside  Gerald. 
Birkin,  looking  at  them,  felt  a  pain  of  tenderness  for  them. 

"I  think  the  place  is  really  wonderful,  Gerald,"  he  said; 
"prachtvoll  and  wunderbar  and  wunderschon  and  unbe- 
schreiblich  and  all  the  other  German  adjectives." 

Gerald  broke  into  a  slight  smile. 

"7  like  it,"  he  said. 

The  tables,  of  white  scrubbed  wood,  were  placed  round  three 
sides  of  the  room,  as  in  a  Gasthaus.  Birkin  and  Ursula  sat 
with  their  backs  to  the  wall,  which  was  of  oiled  wood,  and 
Gerald  and  Gudrun  sat  in  the  corner  next  them,  near  to  the 
stove.  It  was  a  fairly  large  place,  with  a  tiny  bar,  just  like 
a  country  inn,  but  quite  simple  and  bare,  and  all  of  oiled 
wood,  ceilings  and  walls  and  floor,  the  only  furniture  being 
the  tables  and  benches  going  round  three  sides,  the  great  green 
stove,  and  the  bar  and  the  doors  on  the  fourth  side.  The 
windows  were  double,  and  quite  uncurtained.  It  was  early 
evening. 

The  coffee  came — hot  and  good — and  a  whole  ring  of  cake. 

"A  whole  Kuchen!"  cried  Ursula.  "They  give  you  more 
than  us!   I  want  some  of  yours." 

There  were  other  people  in  the  place,  ten  altogether,  so 
Birkin  had  found  out:  two  artists,  three  students,  a  man  and 
wife,  and  a  Professor  and  two  daughters — all  Germans. 
The  four  English  people,  being  newcomers,  sat  in  their  coign 
of  vantage  to  watch.  The  Germans  peeped  in  at  the  door, 
called  a  word  to  the  waiter,  and  went  away  again.      It  was 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  449 

not  meal-time,  so  they  did  not  come  into  this  dining-room, 
but  betook  themselves,  when  their  boots  were  changed,  to 
the  Reunionsaal. 

The  English  visitors  could  hear  the  occasional  twanging 
of  a  zither,  the  strumming  of  a  piano,  snatches  of  laughter 
and  shouting  and  singing,  a  faint  vibration  of  voices.  The 
whole  building  being  of  wood,  it  seemed  to  carry  every  sound, 
like  a  drum,  but  instead  of  increasing  each  particular  noise, 
it  decreased  it,  so  that  the  sound  of  the  zither  seemed  tiny, 
as  if  a  diminutive  zither  were  playing  somewhere,  and  it  seemed 
the  piano  must  be  a  small  one,  like  a  little  spinet. 

The  host  came  when  the  coffee  was  finished.  He  was  a 
Tyrolese,  broad,  rather  flat-cheeked,  with  a  pale,  pock-marked 
skin  and  flourishing  moustaches. 

"Would  you  like  to  go  to  the  Reunionsaal  to  be  introduced 
to  the  other  ladies  and  gentlemen?"  he  asked,  bending  for- 
ward and  smiling,  showing  his  large,  strong  teeth.  His  blue 
eyes  went  quickly  from  one  to  the  other — he  was  not  quite 
sure  of  his  ground  with  these  English  people.  He  was  un- 
happy too  because  he  spoke  no  English  and  he  was  not  sure 
whether  to  try  his  French. 

"Shall  we  go  to  the  Reunionsaal,  and  be  introduced  to  the 
other  people?"   repeated  Gerald,  laughing. 

There  was  a  moment's  hesitation. 

"I  suppose  we'd  better — better  break  the  ice,"  said  Birkin. 

The  women  rose,  rather  flushed.  And  the  Wirt's  black 
beetle-like,  broad-shouldered  figure  went  on  ignominiously 
in  front,  towards  the  noise.  He  opened  the  door  and 
ushered  the  four  strangers  into  the  play-room. 

Instantly  a  silence  fell,  a  slight  embarrassment  came  over 
the  company.  The  newcomers  had  a  sense  of  many  blond 
faces  looking  their  way.  Then,  the  host  was  bowing  to  a  short, 
energetic-looking  man  with  large  moustaches,  and  saying 
in  a  low  voice. 

"Herr  Professor,  darf  ich  vorstcllen — " 

The  Herr  Professor  was  prompt  and  energetic.  He  bowed 
low  to  the  English  people,  smiling,  and  began  to  be  a  com- 
rade at  once. 

"Nehmen  die  Herrschaften  teil  an  unserer  Unterhaltung?" 


450  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

he  said,  with  a  vigorous  suavity,  his  voice  curling  up  in  the 
question. 

The  four  English  people  smiled,  lounging  with  an  attentive 
uneasiness  in  the  middle  of  the  room.  Gerald,  who  was 
spokesman,  said  that  they  would  willingly  take  part  in  the 
entertainment.  Gudrun  and  Ursula,  laughing,  excited,  felt 
the  eyes  of  all  the  men  upon  them,  and  they  lifted  their  heads 
and  looked  nowhere,  and  felt  royal. 

The  Professor  announced  the  names  of  those  present, 
sans  cerimonie.  There  was  a  bowing  to  the  wrong  people 
and  to  the  right  people.  Everybody  was  there,  except  the 
man  and  wife.  The  two  tall,  clear-skinned,  athletic  daughters 
of  the  professor,  with  their  plain-cut,  dark  blue  blouses  and 
loden  skirts,  their  rather  long,  strong  necks,  their  clear  blue 
eyes  and  carefully  banded  hair,  and  their  blushes,  bowed 
and  stood  back;  the  three  students  bowed  very  low,  in  the 
humble  hope  of  making  an  impression  of  extreme  good- 
breeding;  then  there  was  a  thin,  dark-skinned  man  with  full 
eyes,  an  odd  creature,  like  a  child,  and  like  a  troll,  quick, 
detached;  he  bowed  slightly;  his  companion,  a  large  fair 
young  man,  stylishly  dressed,  blushed  to  the  eyes  and  bowed 
very  low. 

It  was  over. 

"Herr  Loerke  was  giving  us  a  recitation  in  the  Cologne 
dialect,"  said  the  Professor. 

"He  must  forgive  us  for  interrupting  him,"  said  Gerald, 
"we  should  like  very  much  to  hear  it." 

There  was  instantly  a  bowing  and  an  offering  of  seats. 
Gudrun  and  Uusula,  Gerald  and  Birkin  sat  in  the  deep  sofas 
against  the  wall.  The  room  was  of  naked  oiled  panelling,  like 
the  rest  of  the  house.  It  had  a  piano,  sofas  and  chairs,  and  a 
couple  of  tables  with  books  and  magazines.  In  its  complete 
absence  of  decoration,  save  for  the  big,  blue  stove,  it  was  cozy 
and  pleasant. 

Herr  Loerke  was  the  little  man  with  the  boyish  figure, 
and  the  round,  full,  sensitive-looking  head,  and  the  quick, 
full  eyes,  like  a  mouse's.  He  glanced  swiftly  from  one  to  the 
other  of  the  strangers,  and  held  himself  aloof. 

"Please  go  on  with  the   recitation,"  said    the    Professor, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  451 

suavely,  with  his  slight  authority.  Loerke,  who  was  sitting 
hunched  on  the  piano  stool,  blinked  and  did  not  answer. 

"It  would  be  a  great  pleasure,"  said  Ursula,  who  had  been 
getting  the  sentence  ready,  in  German,  for  some  minutes. 

Then,  suddenly,  the  small,  unresponding  man  swung 
aside,  towards  his  previous  audience  and  broke  forth,  exactly 
as  he  had  broken  off;  in  a  controlled,  mocking  voice,  giving 
an  imitation  of  a  quarrel  between  an  old  Cologne  woman  and  a 
railway  guard. 

His  body  was  slight  and  unformed,  like  a  boy's,  but  his 
voice  was  mature,  sardonic,  its  movement  had  the  flexibility 
of  essential  energy,  and  of  a  mocking  penetrating  understand- 
ing. Gudrun  could  not  understand  a  word  of  his  mono- 
logue, but  she  was  spell-bound,  watching  him.  He  must 
be  an  artist,  nobody  else  could  have  such  fine  adjustment  and 
singleness.  The  Germans  were  doubled  up  with  laughter, 
hearing  his  strange  droll  words,  his  droll  phrases  of  dialect. 
And  in  the  midst  of  their  paroxysms,  they  glanced  with 
deference  at  the  four  English  strangers,  the  elect.  Gudrun 
and  Ursula  were  forced  to  laugh.  The  room  rang  with  shouts 
of  laughter.  The  blue  eyes  of  the  Professor's  daughters 
were  swimming  over  with  laughter-tears,  their  clear  cheeks 
were  flushed  crimson  with  mirth,  their  father  broke  out  in 
the  most  astonishing  peals  of  hilarity,  the  students  bowed 
tln-ir  heads  on  their  knees  in  excess  of  joy.  Ursula  looked 
round  amazed,  the  laughter  was  bubbling  out  of  her  involun- 
tarily. She  looked  at  Gudrun.  Gudrun  looked  at  her, 
and  the  two  sisters  burst  out  laughing,  carried  away.  Loerke 
glanced  at  them  swiftly,  with  his  full  eyes.  Birkin  was 
sniggering  involuntarily.  Gerald  Crich  sat  erect,  with  a 
glistening  look  of  amusement  on  his  face.  And  the  laughter 
crashed  out  again,  in  wild  paroxysms,  the  Professor's  daughters 
were  reduced  to  shaking  helplessness,  the  veins  of  the  Pro- 
fessor's neck  were  swollen,  his  face  was  purple,  he  was 
strangled  in  ultimate,  silent  spasms  of  laughter.  The  students 
were  shouting  half-articulated  words  that  tailed  off  in  helpless 
explosions.  Then  suddenly  the  rapid  patter  of  the  artist  ceased, 
there  were  little  whoops  of  subsiding  mirth,  Ursula  and  Gudrun 
were  wiping  their  eyes,  and  the  Professor  was  crying  loudly. 


452  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Das  war  ausgezeichnet,  das  war  famos — " 

"Wirklich  famos,"  echoed  his  exhausted  daughters,  faintly. 

"And  we  couldn't  understand  it,"  cried  Ursula. 

"Oh  leider,  leider!"  cried  the  Professor. 

"You  couldn't  understand  it?"  cried  the  students,  let 
loose  at  last  in  speech  with  the  newcomers.  "Ja,  das  ist 
wirklich  schade,  das  ist  schade,  gnadige  Frau.     Wissen  Sie — " 

The  mixture  was  made,  the  newcomers  were  stirred  into 
the  party,  like  new  ingredients,  the  whole  room  was  alive. 
Gerald  was  in  his  element,  he  talked  freely  and  excitedly, 
his  face  glistened  with  a  strange  amusement.  Perhaps 
even  Birkin,  in  the  end,  would  break  forth.  He  was  shy  and 
withheld,  though  full  of  attention. 

Ursula  was  prevailed  upon  to  sing  "Annie  Lowrie,"  as  the 
Professor  called  it.  There  was  a  hush  of  extreme  deference. 
She  had  never  been  so  flattered  in  her  life.  Gudrun  accom- 
panied her  on  the  piano,  playing  from  memory. 

Ursula  had  a  beautiful  ringing  voice,  but  usually  no  con- 
fidence, she  spoiled  everything.  This  evening  she  felt  con- 
ceited and  untrammelled.  Birkin  was  well  in  the  back- 
ground, she  shone  almost  in  reaction,  the  Germans  made  her 
feel  fine  and  infallible,  she  was  liberated  into  overweening 
self-confidence.  She  felt  like  a  bird  flying  in  the  air,  as  her 
voice  soared  out,  enjoying  herself  extremely  in  the  balance 
and  flight  of  the  song,  like  the  motion  of  a  bird's  wings  that  is 
up  in  the  wind,  sliding  and  playing  on  the  air,  she  played  with 
sentimentality,  supported  by  rapturous  attention.  She 
was  very  happy,  singing  that  song  by  herself,  full  of  a  conceit 
of  emotion  and  power,  working  upon  all  those  people,  and  upon 
herself,  exerting  herself  with  gratification,  giving  immeasurable 
gratification  to  the  Germans. 

At  the  end,  the  Germans  were  all  touched  with  admiring, 
delicious  melancholy,  they  praised  her  in  soft,  reverent  voices, 
they  could  not  say  too  much. 

"Wie  schon,  wie  rvihrend!  Ach,  die  Schottischen  Lieder, 
sie  haben  so  viel  Stimmung!  Aber  die  gnadige  Frau  hat  eine 
wunderbare  Stimme;  die  gnadige  Frau  ist  wirklich  eine 
Kunstlerin,  aber  wirklich! 

She  was  dilated  and  brilliant,  like  a  flower  in  the  morning 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  453 

sun.  She  felt  Birkin  looking  at  her,  as  if  he  were  jealous  of 
her,  and  her  breasts  thrilled,  her  veins  were  all  golden.  She 
was  as  happy  as  the  sun  that  has  just  opened  above  clouds. 
And  everybody  seemed  so  admiring  and  radiant,  it  was  perfect. 

After  dinner  she  wanted  to  go  out  for  a  minute,  to  look  at 
the  world.  The  company  tried  to  dissuade  hei* — it  was  so 
terribly  cold.     But  just  to  look,  she  said. 

They  all  four  wrapped  up  warmly,  and  found  themselves 
in  a  vague,  unsubstantial  outdoors  of  dim  snow  and  ghosts 
of  an  upper-world,  that  made  strange  shadows  before  the 
stars.  It  was  indeed  cold,  bruisingly,  frighteningly,  un- 
naturally cold.  Ursula  could  not  believe  the  air  in  her 
nostrils.  It  seemed  conscious,  malevolent,  purposive  in  its 
intense  murderous  coldness. 

Yet  it  was  wonderful,  an  intoxication,  a  silence  of  dim, 
unrealised  snow,  of  the  Invisible  intervening  between  her 
and  the  visible,  between  her  and  the  flashing  stars.  She 
could  see  Orion  sloping  up.  How  wonderful  he  was,  wonder- 
full  enough  to  make  one  cry  aloud. 

And  all  around  was  this  cradle  of  snow,  and  there  was 
firm  snow  underfoot,  that  struck  with  heavy  cold  through  her 
boot-soles.  It  was  night,  and  silence.  She  imagined  she 
could  hear  the  stars.  She  imagined  distinctly  she  could 
hear  the  celestial,  musical  motion  of  the  stars,  quite  near  at 
hand.  She  seemed  like  a  bird  flying  amongst  their  harmoni- 
ous motion. 

And  she  clung  close  to  Birkin.  Suddenly  she  realised 
she  did  not  know  what  he  was  thinking.  She  did  not  know 
where  he  was  ranging. 

"My  love!"  she  said,  stopping  to  look  at  him. 

His  face  was  pale,  his  eyes  dark,  there  was  a  faint  spark 
of  starlight  on  them.  And  he  saw  her  face  soft  and  up- 
turned to  him,  very  near.     He  kissed  her  softly. 

"What  then?"   he  asked. 

"Do  you  love  me?"  she  asked. 

"Too  much,"  he  answerd  quietly. 

She  clung  a  little  closer. 

"Not  too  much,"  she  pleaded. 

"Far  too  much,"  he  said,  almost  sadly. 


454  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"And  does  it  make  you  sad,  that  I  am  everything  to  you?" 
she  asked,  wistful.  He  held  her  close  to  him,  kissing  her, 
and  saying,  scarcely  audible: 

"No,  but  I  feel  like  a  beggar — I  feel  poor." 

She  was  silent,  looking  at  the  stars  now.  Then  she  kissed 
him. 

"Don't  be  a  beggar,"  she  pleaded,  wistfully.  "It  isn't 
ignominious  that  you  love  me." 

"It  is  ignominious  to  feel  poor,  isn't  it?"   he  replied. 

"Why?  Why  should  it  be?"  she  asked.  He  only  stood 
still,  in  the  terribly  cold  air  that  moved  invisibly  over  the 
mountain  tops,  folding  her  round  with  his  arms. 

"I  couldn't  bear  this  cold,  eternal  place  without  you," 
he  said.     "I  couldn't  bear  it,  it  would  kill  the  quick  of  my  life." 

She  kissed  him  again,  suddenly. 

"Do  you  hate  it?"   she  asked,  puzzled,  wondering. 

"If  I  couldn't  come  near  to  you,  if  you  weren't  here,  I 
should  hate  it.      I  couldn't  bear  it,"  he  answered. 

"But  the  people  are  nice,"  she  said. 

"I  mean  the  stillness,  the  cold,  the  frozen  eternality," 
he  said. 

She  wondered.  Then  her  spirit  came  home  to  him,  nest- 
ling unconscious  in  him. 

"Yes,  it  is  good  we  are  warm  and  together,"  she  said. 

And  they  turned  home  again.  They  saw  the  golden  lights 
of  the  hotel  glowing  out  in  the  night  of  snow-silence,  small 
in  the  hollow,  like  a  cluster  of  yellow  berries.  It  seemed  like 
a  bunch  of  sun-sparks,  tiny  and  orange  in  the  midst  of  the  snow- 
darkness.  Behind,  was  a  high  shadow  of  a  peak,  blotting 
out  the  stars,  like  a  ghost. 

They  drew  near  to  their  home.  They  saw  a  man  come 
from  the  dark  building,  with  a  lighted  lantern  which  swung 
golden,  and  made  that  his  dark  feet  walked  in  a  halo  of  snow. 
He  was  a  small,  dark  figure  in  the  darkened  snow.  He  un- 
latched the  door  of  an  outhouse.  A  smell  of  cows,  hot, 
animal,  almost  like  beef,  came  out  on  the  heavily  cold  air. 
There  was  a  glimpse  of  two  cattle  in  their  dark  stalls,  then  the 
door  was  shut  again,  and  not  a  chink  of  light  showed.  It 
had  reminded  Ursula  again  of  home,  of  the  Marsh,  of  her 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  455 

childhood,  and  of  the  journey  to  Brussels,  and,  strangely, 
of  Anton  Skrebensky. 

Oh,  God,  could  one  bear  it,  this  past  which  was  gone  down 
the  abyss?  Could  she  bear,  that  it  ever  had  been !  She  looked 
round  this  silent,  upper  world  of  snow  and  stars  and  powerful 
cold.  There  was  another  world,  like  views  on  a  magic  lantern; 
the  Marsh,  Cossethay,  Ilkeston,  lit  up  with  a  common,  un- 
real light.  There  was  a  shadowy  unreal  Ursula,  a  whole 
shadowplay  of  an  unreal  life.  It  was  as  unreal,  and  circum- 
scribed, as  a  magic  lantern  show.  She  wished  the  slides 
could  all  be  broken.  She  wished  it  could  be  gone  for  ever, 
like  a  lantern-slide  which  was  broken.  She  wanted  to  have 
no  past.  She  wanted  to  have  come  down  from  the  slopes  of 
heaven  to  this  place,  with  Birkin,  not  to  have  toiled  out  of 
the  murk  of  her  childhood  and  her  upbringing,  slowly,  all 
soiled.  She  felt  that  memory  was  a  dirty  trick  played  upon 
her.  What  was  this  decree,  that  she  should  "remember"! 
Why  not  a  bath  of  pure  oblivion,  a  new  birth,  without  any 
recollections  or  blemish  of  a  past  life.  She  was  with  Birkin, 
she  had  just  come  into  life,  here  in  the  high  snow,  against  the 
stars.  What  had  she  to  do  with  parents  and  antecedents? 
She  knew  herself  new  and  unbegotten,  she  had  no  father,  no 
mother,  no  anterior  connections,  she  was  herself,  pure  and 
silvery,  she  belonged  only  to  the  oneness  with  Birkin,  a  oneness 
that  struck  deeper  notes,  sounding  into  the  heart  of  the  uni- 
verse, the  heart  of  reality,  where  she  had  never  existed  before. 

Even  Gudrun  was  a  separate  unit,  separate,  separate, 
having  nothing  to  do  with  this  self,  this  Ursula,  in  her  new 
world  of  reality.  That  old  shadow-world,  the  actuality  of 
the  past — ah,  let  it  go!  She  rose  free  on  the  wings  of  her  new 
<-.m<lition. 

Gudrun  and  Gerald  had  not  come  in.  They  had  walked 
up  the  valley  straight  in  front  of  the  house,  not  like  Ursula 
and  Birkin,  on  to  the  little  hill  at  the  right.  Gudrun  was 
driven  by  a  strange  desire.  She  wanted  to  plunge  on  and  on, 
till  she  came  to  the  end  of  the  valley  of  snow.  Then  she 
wanted  to  climb  the  wall  of  white  finality,  climb  over,  into  the 
peaks  that  sprang  up  like  sharp  petals  in  the  heart  of  the  frozen, 
mysterious  navel  of  the  world.     She  felt  that  there,  over  the 


456  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

strange  blind,  terrible  wall  of  rocky  snow,  there  in  the  navel 
of  the  mystic  world,  among  the  final  cluster  of  peaks,  there, 
in  the  infolded  navel  of  it  all,  was  her  consummation.  If  she 
could  but  come  there,  alone,  and  pass  into  the  infolded  navel 
of  eternal  snow  and  of  uprising,  immortal  peaks  of  snow  and 
rock,  she  would  be  a  oneness  with  all,  she  would  be  herself 
the  eternal,  infinite  silence,  the  sleeping,  timeless,  frozen 
centre  of  the  All. 

They  went  back  to  the  house,  to  the  Reunionsaal.  She 
was  curious  to  see  what  was  going  on.  The  men  there  made 
her  alert,  roused  her  curiosity.  It  was  a  new  taste  of  life 
for  her,  they  were  so  prostrate  before  her,  yet  so  full  of  life. 

The  party  was  boisterous;  they  were  dancing  all  together, 
dancing  the  Schuhplatteln,  the  Tyrolese  dance  of  the  clapping 
hands  and  tossing  the  partner  in  the  air,  at  the  crisis.  The 
Germans  were  all  proficient — they  were  from  Munich  chiefly. 
Gerald  also  was  quite  passable.  There  were  three  zithers 
twanging  away  in  a  corner.  It  was  a  scene  of  great  animation 
and  confusion.  The  professor  was  initiating  Ursula  into  the 
dance,  stamping,  clapping  and  swinging  her  high,  with  amaz- 
ing force  and  zest.  When  the  crisis  came  even  Birkin  was 
behaving  manfully  with  one  of  the  professor's  fresh,  strong 
daughters,  who  was  exceedingly  happy.  Everybody  was 
dancing,  there  was  the  most  boisterous  turmoil. 

Gudrun  looked  on  with  delight.  The  solid  wooden  floor 
resounded  to  the  knocking  heels  of  the  men,  the  air  quivered 
with  the  clapping  hands  and  the  zither  music,  there  was  a 
golden  dust  about  the  hanging  lamps. 

Suddenly  the  dance  finished,  Loerke  and  the  students 
rushed  out  to  bring  in  drinks.  There  was  an  excited  clamour 
of  voices,  a  clinking  of  muglids,  a  great  crying  of  "Prosit- 
Prosit!"  Loerke  was  everywhere  at  once,  like  a  gnome, 
suggesting  drinks  for  the  women,  making  an  obscure,  slightly 
risky  joke  with  the  men,  confusing  and  mystifying  the  waiter. 

He  wanted  very  much  to  dance  with  Gudrun.  From  the 
first  moment  he  had  seen  her,  he  wanted  to  make  a  connection 
with  her.  Instinctively  she  felt  this,  and  she  waited  for  him 
to  come  up.  But  a  kind  of  sulkiness  kept  him  away  from 
her,  so  she  thought  he  disliked  her. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  457 

"Will  you  schuhpletteln,  gnadige  Frau?"  said  the  large, 
fair  youth,  Loerke's  companion.  He  was  too  soft,  too  humble 
for  Gudrun's  taste.  But  she  wanted  to  dance,  and  the  fair 
youth,  who  was  called  Leitner,  was  handsome  enough  in  his 
uneasy,  slightly  abject  fashion,  a  humility  that  covered  a  cer- 
tain fear.     She  accepted  him  as  a  partner. 

The  zithers  sounded  out  again,  the  dance  began.  Gerald 
led  them,  laughing,  with  one  of  the  Professor's  daughters. 
Ursula  danced  with  one  of  the  students,  Birkin  with  the  other 
daughter  of  the  Professor,  the  Professor  with  Frau  Kramer, 
and  the  rest  of  the  men  danced  together,  with  quite  as  much 
zest  as  if  they  had  had  women  partners. 

Because  Gudrun  had  danced  with  the  well-built,  soft 
youth,  his  companion,  Loerke,  was  more  pettish  and  ex- 
asperated than  ever,  and  would  not  even  notice  her  existence 
in  the  room.  This  piqued  her,  but  she  made  up  to  herself 
by  dancing  with  the  professor,  who  was  strong  as  a  mature, 
well-seasoned  bull,  and  as  full  of  coarse  energy.  She  could 
not  bear  him,  critically,  and  yet  she  enjoyed  being  rushed 
through  the  dance,  and  tossed  up  into  the  air,  on  his  coarse, 
powerful  impetus.  The  professor  enjoyed  it  too,  he  eyed 
her  with  strange,  large  blue  eyes,  full  of  galvanic  fire.  She 
hated  him  for  the  seasoned,  semi-paternal  animalism  with 
which  he  regarded  her,  but  she  admired  his  weight  of 
strength. 

The  room  was  charged  with  excitement  and  strong,  animal 
emotion.  Loerke  was  kept  away  from  Gudrun,  to  whom 
he  wanted  to  speak,  as  by  a  hedge  of  thorns,  and  he  felt  a 
sardonic  ruthless  hatred  for  this  young  love-companion, 
Leitner,  who  was  his  penniless  dependent.  He  mocked 
the  youth,  with  an  acid  ridicule,  that  made  Leitner  red  in  the 
face  and  impotent  with  resentment. 

Gerald,  who  had  now  got  the  dance  perfectly,  was  dancing 
again  with  the  younger  of  the  Professor's  daughters,  who  was 
almost  dying  of  virgin  excitement,  because  she  thought  Ger- 
ald so  handsome,  so  superb.  He  had  her  in  his  power,  as  if 
she  were  a  palpitating  bird,  a  fluttering,  flushing,  bewildered 
creature.  And  it  made  him  smile,  as  she  shrank  convulsively 
between  his  hands,  violently,  when  he  must  throw  her  into 


458  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

the  air.  At  the  end,  she  was  so  overcome  with  prostrate 
love  for  him,  that  she  could  scarcely  speak  sensibly  at  all. 

Birkin  was  dancing  with  Ursula.  There  were  odd  little 
fires  playing  in  his  eyes,  he  seemed  to  have  turned  into 
something  wicked  and  flickering,  mocking,  suggestive,  quite 
impossible.  Ursula  was  frightened  of  him,  and  fascinated. 
Clear,  before  her  eyes,  as  in  a  vision,  she  could  see  the  sardonic, 
licentious  mockery  of  his  eyes,  he  moved  towards  her  with 
subtle,  animal,  indifferent  approach.  The  strangeness  of  his 
hands,  which  came  quick  and  cunning,  inevitably  to  the  vital 
place  beneath  her  breasts,  and,  lifting  with  mocking,  suggestive 
impulse,  carried  her  through  the  air  as  if  without  strength, 
through  black-magic,  made  her  swoon  with  fear.  For  a 
moment  she  revolted,  it  was  horrible.  She  would  break  the 
spell.  But  before  the  resolution  had  formed  she  had  sub- 
mitted again,  yielded  to  her  fear.  He  knew  all  the  time  what 
he  was  doing,  she  could  see  it  in  his  smiling,  concentrated  eyes. 
It  was  his  responsibility,  she  would  leave  it  to  him. 

When  they  were  alone  in  the  darkness,  she  felt  the  strange, 
licentiousness  of  him  hovering  upon  her.  She  was  troubled 
and  repelled.      Why  should  he  turn  like  this. 

"What  is  it?"   she  asked  in  dread. 

But  his  face  only  glistened  on  her,  unknown,  horrible. 
And  yet  she  was  fascinated.  Her  impulse  was  to  repel  him 
violently,  break  from  this  spell  of  mocking  brutishness. 
But  she  was  too  fascinated,  she  wanted  to  submit,  she  wanted 
to  know.     What  would  he  do  to  her? 

He  was  so  attractive,  and  so  repulsive  at  once.  The 
sardonic,  suggestivity  that  flickered  over  his  face  and  looked 
from  his  narrowed  eyes,  made  her  want  to  hide,  to  hide  her- 
self away  from  him  and  watch  him  from  somewhere  unseen. 

"Why  are  you  like  this?"  she  demanded  again,  rousing 
against  him  with  sudden  force  and  animosity. 

The  flickering  fires  in  his  eyes  concentrated  as  he  looked 
into  her  eyes.  Then  the  lids  drooped  with  a  faint  motion  of 
satiric  contempt.  Then  they  rose  again  to  the  same  remorse- 
less suggestivity.  And  she  gave  way,  he  might  do  as  he  would. 
His  licentiousness  was  repulsively  attractive.  But  he  was 
self-responsible,  she  would  see  what  it  was. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  459 

They  might  do  as  they  liked — this  she  realised  as  she  went 
to  sleep.  How  could  anything  that  gave  one  satisfaction 
be  excluded?  What  was  degrading? — Who  cared?  Degrading 
things  were  real,  with  a  different  reality.  And  he  was  so 
unabashed  and  unrestrained.  Wasn't  it  rather  horrible, 
a  man  who  could  be  so  soulful  and  spiritual,  now  to  be  so — 
she  balked  at  her  own  thoughts  and  memories:  then  she 
added — so  bestial?  So  bestial,  they  two! — so  degraded! 
She  winced. — But  after  all,  why  not?  She  exulted  as  well. 
Why  not  be  bestial,  and  go  the  whole  round  of  experience? 
She  exulted  in  it.  She  was  bestial.  How  good  it  was  to  be 
really  shameful!  There  would  be  no  shameful  thing  she  had 
not  experienced. — Yet  she  was  unabashed,  she  was  herself. 
Why  not? — She  was  free,  when  she  knew  everything,  and  no 
dark  shameful  things  were  denied  her. 

Gudrun,  who  had  been  watching  Gerald  in  the  Reunionsaal, 
suddenly  thought: 

"He  should  have  all  the  women  he  can — it  is  his  nature. 
It  is  absurd  to  call  him  monogamous — he  is  naturally  promiscu- 
ous.    That  is  his  nature." 

The  thought  came  to  her  involuntarily.  It  shocked  her 
somewhat.  It  was  as  if  she  had  seen  some  new  Menel  Menel 
upon  the  wall.  Yet  it  was  merely  true.  A  voice  seemed  to 
have  spoken  it  to  her  so  clearly,  that  for  the  moment  she 
believed  in  inspiration. 

"It  is  really  true,"  she  said  to  herself  again. 

She  knew  quite  well  she  had  believed  it  all  along.  She 
knew  it  implicitly.  But  she  must  keep  it  dark— almost  from 
herself.  She  must  keep  it  completely  secret.  It  was 
knowledge  for  her  alone,  and  scarcely  even  to  be  admitted  to 
herself. 

The  deep  resolve  formed  in  her,  to  combat  him.  One 
of  them  must  triumph  over  the  other.  Which  should  it  be? 
Her  soul  steeled  itself  with  strength.  Almost  she  laughed 
within  herself,  at  her  confidence.  It  woke  a  certain  keen, 
half  contemptuous  pity,  tenderness  for  him:  she  was  so  ruthless. 

Kwrvlxjdy  retired  early.  The  professor  and  Loerke  went 
into  a  small  lounge  to  drink.  They  both  watched  Gudrun 
go  along  the  landing  by  the  railing  upstairs. 


460  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Ein  schones  Frauenzimmer,"  said  the  Professor. 

"Ja!"   asserted  Loerke,  shortly. 

Gerald  walked  with  his  queer,  long  wolf-steps  across  the 
bedroom  to  the  window,  stooped  and  looked  out,  then  rose 
again,  and  turned  to  Gudrun,  his  eyes  sharp  with  an  abstract 
smile.  He  seemed  very  tall  to  her,  she  saw  the  glisten  of  his 
whitish  eyebrows,  that  met  between  his  brows. 

"How  do  you  like  it?"   he  said. 

He  seemed  to  be  laughing  inside  himself,  quite  uncon- 
sciously. She  looked  at  him.  He  was  a  phenomenon  to  her, 
not  a  human  being:   a  sort  of  creature,  greedy. 

"I  like  it  very  much,"  she  replied. 

"Who  do  you  like  best  downstairs?"  he  asked,  standing 
tall  and  glistening  above  her,  with  his  glistening  stiff  hair 
erect. 

"Who  do  I  like  best?"  she  repeated,  wanting  to  answer 
his  question,  and  finding  it  difficult  to  collect  herself.  "Why 
I  don't  know,  I  don't  know  enough  about  them  yet,  to  be  able 
to  say.     Who  do  you  like  best?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  care — I  don't  like  or  dislike  any  of  them. 
It  doesn't  matter  about  me.      I  wanted  to  know  about  you." 

"But  why?"  she  asked,  going  rather  pale.  The  abstract, 
unconscious  smile  in  his  eyes  was  intensified. 

"I  wanted  to  know,"  he  said. 

She  turned  aside,  breaking  the  spell.  In  some  strange 
way,  she  felt  he  was  getting  power  over  her. 

"Well,  I  can't  tell  you  already,"  she  said. 

She  went  to  the  mirror  to  take  out  the  hairpins  from  her 
hair.  She  stood  before  the  mirror  every  night  for  some 
minutes,  brushing  her  fine  dark  hair.  It  was  part  of  the  in- 
evitable ritual  of  her  life. 

He  followed  her,  and  stood  behind  her.  She  was  busy 
with  bent  head,  taking  out  the  pins  and  shaking  her  warm 
hair  loose.  When  she  looked  up,  she  saw  him  in  the  glass, 
standing  behind  her,  watching  unconsciously,  not  consciously 
seeing  her,  and  yet  watching,  with  fine-pupilled  eyes  that 
seemed  to  smile,  and  which  were  not  really  smiling. 

She  started.  It  took  all  her  courage  for  her  to  continue 
brushing    her   hair,   as   usual,   for   her   to   pretend   she   was 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  461 

at  her  ease.  She  was  far,  far  from  being  at  her  ease  with 
him.  She  beat  her  brains  wildly  for  something  to  say  to 
him. 

"What  are  your  plans  for  to-morrow?"  she  asked  non- 
chalantly, whilst  her  heart  was  beating  so  furiously,  her  eyes 
were  so  bright  with  strange  nervousness,  she  felt  he  could 
not  but  observe.  But  she  knew  also  that  he  was  completely 
blind,  blind  as  a  wolf  looking  at  her.  It  was  a  strange  battle 
between  her  ordinary  consciousness  and  his  uncanny,  black- 
art  consciousness. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  replied,  "what  would  you  like  to  do?" 

He  spoke  emptily,  his  mind  was  sunk  away. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  with  easy  protestation,  "I'm  ready  for 
anything — anything  will  be  fine  for  me,  I'm  sure." 

And  to  herself  she  was  saying:  "God,  why  am  I  so  nervous 
— why  are  you  so  nervous,  you  fool.  If  he  sees  it  I'm  done 
for  forever — you  know  you're  done  for  forever,  if  he  sees  the 
absurd  state  you're  in." 

And  she  smiled  to  herself  as  it  it  were  all  child's  play. 
Meanwhile  her  heart  was  plunging,  she  was  almost  fainting. 
She  could  see  him,  in  the  mirror,  as  he  stood  there  behind  her, 
tall  and  over-arching — blond  and  terribly  frightening.  She 
glanced  at  his  reflection  with  furtive  eyes,  willing  to  give 
anything  to  save  him  from  knowing  she  could  see  him.  He 
did  not  know  she  could  see  his  reflection.  He  was  looking 
unconsciously,  glisteningly  down  at  her  head,  from  which 
the  hair  fell  loose,  as  she  brushed  it  with  wild,  nervous  hand. 
She  held  her  head  aside  and  brushed  and  brushed  her  hair 
madly.  For  her  life,  she  could  not  turn  round  and  face  him. 
For  her  life,  she  could  not.  And  the  knowledge  made  her 
almost  sink  to  the  ground  in  a  faint,  helpless,  spent.  She 
was  aware  of  his  frightening,  impending  figure  standing  close 
behind  her,  she  was  aware  of  his  hard,  strong,  unyielding 
chest,  close  upon  her  back.  And  she  felt  she  could  not  bear 
it  any  more,  in  a  few  minutes  she  would  fall  down  at  his  feet, 
grovelling  at  his  feet,  and  letting  him  destroy  her. 

The  thought  pricked  up  all  her  sharp  intelligence  and 
presence  of  mind.  She  dared  not  turn  round  to  him — and 
there  he  stood  motionless,  unbroken.      Summoning  all  her 


462  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

strength,  she  said,  in  a  full,  resonant,  nonchalant  voice,  that 
was  forced  out  with  all  her  remaining  self-control: 

"Oh,  would  you  mind  looking  in  that  bag  behind  there  and 
giving  me  my " 

Here  her  power  fell  inert.  "My  what — my  what — ?" 
she  screamed  in  silence  to  herself. 

But  he  had  started  round,  surprised  and  startled  that  she 
should  ask  him  to  look  in  her  bag,  which  she  always  kept  so 
very  private  to  herself.  She  turned  now,  her  face  white,  her 
dark  eyes  blazing  with  uncanny,  overwrought  excitement. 
She  saw  him  stooping  to  the  bag,  undoing  the  loosely  buckled 
strap,  unattentive. 

"Your  what?"   he  asked. 

"Oh,  a  little  enamel  box — yellow — with  a  design  of  a  cor- 
morant plucking  her  breast — " 

She  went  towards  him,  stooping  her  beautiful,  bare  arm, 
and  deftly  turned  some  of  her  things,  disclosing  the  box, 
which  was  exquisitely  painted. 

"That  is  it,  see,"  she  said,  taking  it  from  under  his  eyes. 

And  he  was  baffled  now.  He  was  left  to  fasten  up  the  bag, 
whilst  she  swiftly  did  up  her  hair  for  the  night,  and  sat  down 
to  unfasten  her  shoes.  She  would  not  turn  her  back  to  him 
any  more. 

He  was  baffled,  frustrated,  but  unconscious.  She  had  the 
whip  hand  over  hin  now.  She  knew  he  had  not  realised  her 
terrible  panic.  Her  heart  was  beating  heavily  still.  Fool, 
fool  that  she  was,  to  get  into  such  a  state!  How  she  thanked 
God  for  Gerald's  obtuse  blindness.  Thank  God  he  could 
see  nothing. 

She  sat  slowly  unlacing  her  shoes,  and  he  too  commenced 
to  undress.  Thank  God  that  crisis  was  over.  She  felt 
almost  fond  of  him  now,  almost  in  love  with  him. 

"Ah,  Gerald,"  she  laughed,  caressively,  teasingly,  "Ah, 
what  a  fine  game  you  played  with  the  Professor's  daughter — 
didn't  you  now?" 

"What  game?"   he  asked,  looking  round. 

"Isn't  she  in  love  with  you — oh  dear,  isn't  she  in  love  with 
you!"   said  Gudrun,  in  her  gayest,  most  attractive  mood. 

"I  shouldn't  think  so,"  he  said. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  463 

"Shouldn't  think  so!"  she  teased.  "Why  the  poor  girl 
is  lying  at  this  moment  overwhelmed,  dying  with  love  for  you. 
She  thinks  you're  wonderful — oh  marvellous,  beyond  what 
man  has  ever  been. — Really,  isn't  it  funny?" 

"Why  funny,  what  is  funny?"  he  asked. 

"Why  to  see  you  working  it  on  her,"  she  said,  with  a  half 
reproach  that  confused  the  male  conceit  in  him.  "Really 
Gerald,  the  poor  girl !" 

"I  did  nothing  to  her,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  it  was  too  shameful,  the  way  you  simply  swept  her 
off  her  feet." 

"That  was  Schuhplatteln,"  he  replied,  with  a  bright  grin. 

"Ha — ha — ha!    laughed  Gudrun. 

Her  mockery  quivered  through  his  muscles  with  curious 
re-echoes.  When  he  slept  he  seemed  to  crouch  down  in  the 
bed,  lapped  up  in  his  own  strength,  that  yet  was  hollow. 

And  Gudrun  slept  strongly,  a  victorious  sleep.  Suddenly, 
she  was  almost  fiercely  awake.  The  small  timber  room  glowed 
with  the  dawn,  that  came  upwards  from  the  low  window. 
She  could  see  down  the  valley  when  she  lifted  her  head:  the 
snow  with  a  pinkish,  half-revealed  magic,  the  fringe  of  pine- 
trees  at  the  bottom  of  the  slope.  And  one  tiny  figure  moved 
over  the  vaguely-illuminated  space. 

She  glanced  at  his  watch;  it  was  seven  o'clock.  He  was 
still  completely  asleep.  And  she  was  so  hard  awake,  it  was 
almost  frightening — a  hard,  metallic  wakefulness.  She  lay 
looking  at  him. 

He  slept  in  the  subjection  of  his  own  health  and  defeat. 
She  was  overcome  by  a  sincere  regard  for  him.  Till  now, 
she  was  afraid  before  him.  She  lay  and  thought  about  him, 
what  he  was,  what  he  represented  in  the  world.  A  fine, 
independent  will,  he  had.  She  thought  of  the  revolution  he 
had  worked  in  the  mines,  in  so  short  a  time.  She  knew  that, 
if  he  were  confronted  with  any  problem,  any  hard  actual 
difficulty,  he  would  overcome  it.  If  he  laid  hold  of  any  idea, 
he  would  carry  it  through.  He  had  the  faculty  of  making 
order  out  of  confusion.  Only  let  him  grip  hold  of  a  situation, 
and  he  would  bring  to  pass  an  inevitable  conclusion. 

For  a  few  moments  she  was  borne  away  on  the  wild  wings 


464  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

of  ambition.  Gerald,  with  his  force  of  will  and  his  power  for 
comprehending  the  actual  world,  should  be  set  to  solve  the 
problems  of  the  day,  the  problem  of  industrialism  in  the  mod- 
ern world.  She  knew  he  would,  in  the  course  of  time,  effect 
the  changes  he  desired,  he  could  re-organise  the  industrial 
system.  She  knew  he  could  do  it.  As  an  instrument,  in 
these  things,  he  was  marvellous,  she  had  never  seen  any 
man  with  his  potentiality.  He  was  unaware  of  it,  but  she 
knew. 

He  only  needed  to  be  hitched  on,  he  needed  that  his  hand 
should  be  set  to  the  task,  because  he  was  so  unconscious. 
And  this  she  could  do.  She  would  marry  him,  he  would  go 
into  Parliament  in  the  Conservative  interest,  he  would  clear 
up  the  great  muddle  of  labour  and  industry.  He  was  so 
superbly  fearless,  masterful,  he  knew  that  every  problem 
could  be  worked  out,  in  life  as  in  geometry.  And  he  would 
care  neither  about  himself  nor  about  anything  but  the  pure 
working  out  of  the  problem.      He  was  very  pure,  really. 

Her  heart  beat  fast,  she  flew  away  on  wings  of  elation, 
imagining  a  future.  He  would  be  a  Napoleon  of  peace,  or 
a  Bismarck — and  she  the  woman  behind  him.  She  had  read 
Bismarck's  letters,  and  had  been  deeply  moved  by  them. 
And  Gerald  would  be  freer,  more  dauntless  than  Bismarck. 

But  even  as  she  lay  in  fictitious  transport,  bathed  in  the 
strange,  false  sunshine  of  hope  in  life,  something  seemed  to 
snap  in  her,  and  a  terrible  cynicism  began  to  gain  upon  her, 
blowing  in  like  a  wind.  Everything  turned  to  irony  with 
her:  the  last  flavour  of  everything  was  ironical.  When  she 
felt  her  pang  of  undeniable  reality,  this  was  when  she  knew 
the  hard  irony  of  hopes  and  ideas. 

She  lay  and  looked  at  him,  as  he  slept.  He  was  sheerly 
beautiful,  he  was  a  perfect  instrument.  To  her  mind,  he 
was  a  pure,  inhuman,  almost  superhuman  instrument.  His 
instrumentality  appealed  so  strongly  to  her,  she  wished  she 
were  God,  to  use  him  as  a  tool. 

And  at  the  same  instant,  came  the  ironical  question: 
"What  for?"  She  thought  of  the  colliers'  wives,  with  their 
linoleum  and  their  lace  curtains  and  there  little  girls  in  high- 
laced  boots.      She  thought  of  the  wives  and  daughters  of  the 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  465 

pit-managers,  their  tennis-parties,  and  their  terrible  struggles 
to  be  superior  each  to  the  other,  in  the  social  scale.  There 
was  Shortlands  with  its  meaningless  distinction,  the  mean- 
ingless crowd  of  the  Criches.  There  was  London,  the  House 
of  Commons,  the  extant  social  world.      My  God! 

Young  as  she  was,  Gudrun  had  touched  the  whole  pulse  of 
social  England.  She  had  no  ideas  of  rising  in  the  world. 
She  knew,  with  the  perfect  cynicism  of  cruel  youth,  that  to 
rise  in  the  world  meant  to  have  one  outside  show  instead  of 
another,  the  advance  was  like  having  a  spurious  half-crown 
instead  of  a  spurious  penny.  The  whole  coinage  of  valuation 
was  spurious.  Yet  of  course,  her  cynicism  knew  well  enough 
that,  in  a  world  where  spurious  coin  was  current,  a  bad 
sovereign  was  better  than  a  bad  farthing.  But  rich  and  poor, 
she  despised  both  alike. 

Already  she  mocked  at  herself  for  her  dreams.  They 
could  be  fulfilled  easily  enough.  But  she  recognised  too  well, 
in  her  spirit,  the  mockery  of  her  own  impulses.  What  did  she 
care,  that  Gerald  had  created  a  richly-paying  industry  out 
of  an  old  worn-out  concern?  What  did  she  care?  The  worn- 
out  concern  and  the  rapid,  splendidly  organised  industry, 
they  were  bad  money. — Yet  of  course,  she  cared  a  great  deal, 
outwardly — and  outwardly  was  all  that  mattered,  for  in- 
wardly was  a  bad  joke. 

Everything  was  intrinsically  a  piece  of  irony  to  her. 
She  leaned  over  Gerald  and  said  in  her  heart,  with  com- 
passion: 

"Oh,  my  dear,  my  dear,  the  game  isn't  worth  even  you. 
You  are  a  fine  thing  really — why  should  you  be  used  on  such  a 
poor  show!" 

Her  heart  was  breaking  with  pity  and  grief  for  him.  And 
at  the  same  moment,  a  grimace  came  over  her  mouth,  of 
mocking  irony  at  her  own  unspoken  tirade.  Ah,  what  a  farce 
it  was!  She  thought  of  Parnell  and  Katherine  O'Shea. 
Parnell !  After  all,  who  can  take  the  nationalisation  of  Ireland 
seriously?  Who  can  take  political  Ireland  really  seriously, 
whatever  it  does?  And  who  can  take  political  England  seri- 
ously? Who  can?  Who  can  care  a  straw,  really,  how  the  old 
patched-up   Constitution    is    tinkered    at   any    more?     Who 


466  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

cares  a  button  for  our  national  ideals,  any  more  than  for  our 
national  bowler  hat?  Aha,  it  is  all  old  hat,  it  is  all  old  bowler 
hat! 

That's  all  it  is,  Gerald,  my  young  hero.  At  any  rate  we'll 
spare  ourselves  the  nausea  of  stirring  the  old  broth  any  more. 
You  be  beautiful,  my  Gerald,  and  reckless.  There  are  per- 
fect moments.  Wake  up,  Gerald,  wake  up,  convince  me  of  the 
perfect  moments.     Oh,  convince  me,  I  need  it. 

He  opened  his  eyes,  and  looked  at  her.  She  greeted  him 
with  a  mocking,  enigmatic  smile  in  which  was  a  poignant 
gaiety.  Over  his  face  went  the  reflection  of  the  smile,  he 
smiled,  too,  purely  unconsciously. 

That  filled  her  with  extraordinary  delight,  to  see  the  smile 
cross  his  face,  reflected  from  her  face.  She  remembered 
that  was  how  a  baby  smiled.  It  filled  her  with  extraordinary 
radiant  delight. 

"You've  done  it,"  she  said. 

"What?"   he  asked,  dazed. 

"Convinced  me." 

And  she  bent  down,  kissing  him  passionately,  passion- 
ately, so  that  he  was  bewildered.  He  did  not  ask  her  of  what 
he  had  convinced  her,  though  he  meant  to.  He  was  glad 
she  was  kissing  him.  She  seemed  to  be  feeling  for  his  very 
heart  to  touch  the  quick  of  him.  And  he  wanted  her  to 
touch  the  quick  of  his  being,  he  wanted  that  most  of  all. 

Outside,  somebody  was  singing,  in  a  manly,  reckless 
handsome  voice: 

"Mach  rair  auf.  mach  mir  auf,  du  Stolze, 
Mach  mir  ein  Feuer  von  Holze, 
Vom  Regen  bin  ich  nass, 
Vom  Regen  bin  ich  nass — " 

Gudrun  knew  that  that  song  would  sound  through  her 
eternity,  sung  in  a  manly,  reckless,  mocking  voice.  It  marked 
one  of  her  supreme  moments,  the  supreme  pangs  of  her  ner- 
vous gratification.      There  it  was,  fixed  in  eternity  for  her. 

The  day  came  fine  and  bluish.  There  was  a  light  wind 
blowing  among  the  mountain  tops,  keen  as  a  rapier  where  it 
touched,  carrying  with  it  a  fine  dust  of  snow-powder.  Ger- 
ald went  out  with  the  fine,  blind  face  of  a  man  who  is  in  his 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  467 

state  of  fulfilment.  Gudrun  and  he  were  in  perfect  static 
unity  this  morning,  but  unseeing  and  unwitting.  They  went 
out  with  a  toboggan,  leaving  Ursula  and  Birkin  to  follow. 

Gudrun  was  all  scarlet  and  royal  blue — a  scarlet  jersey 
and  cap,  and  a  royal  blue  skirt  and  stockings.  She  went  gaily 
over  the  white  snow,  with  Gerald  beside  her,  in  white  and  grey, 
pulling  the  little  toboggan.  They  grew  small  in  the  distance 
of  snow,  climbing  the  steep  slope. 

For  Gudrun  herself,  she  seemed  to  pass  altogether  into  the 
whiteness  of  the  snow,  she  became  a  pure,  thoughtless  crystal. 
When  she  reached  the  top  of  the  slope,  in  the  wind,  she  looked 
round,  and  saw  peak  beyond  peak  of  rock  and  snow,  bluish, 
transcendent  in  heaven.  And  it  seemed  to  her  like  a  garden, 
with  the  peaks  for  pure  flowers,  and  her  heart  gathering  them. 
She  had  no  separate  consciousness  for  Gerald. 

She  held  on  to  him  as  they  went  sheering  down  over  the 
keen  slope.  She  felt  as  if  her  senses  were  being  whetted  on 
some  fine  grindstone,  that  was  keen  as  flame.  The  snow 
sprinted  on  either  side,  like  sparks  from  a  blade  that  is  being 
sharpened,  the  whiteness  round  about  ran  swifter,  swifter, 
in  pure  flame  the  white  slope  flew  against  her,  and  she  fused 
like  one  molten,  dancing  globule,  rushed  through  a  white  inten- 
sity. Then  there  was  a  great  swerve  at  the  bottom,  when  they 
swung  as  it  were  in  a  fall  to  earth,  in  the  diminishing  motion. 

They  came  to  rest.  But  when  she  rose  to  her  feet,  she 
could  not  stand.  She  gave  a  strange  cry,  turned  and  clung 
to  him,  sinking  her  face  on  his  breast,  fainting  in  him.  Utter 
oblivion  came  over  her,  as  she  lay  for  a  few  moments  abandoned 
against  him. 

"What  is  it?"  he  was  saying.     "Was  it  too  much  for  you?" 

But  she  heard  nothing. 

When  she  came  to,  she  stood  up  and  looked  round, 
astonished.     Her  face  was  white,  her  eyes  brilliant  and  large. 

"What  is  it?"  he  repeated.     "Did  it  upset  you?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  her  brilliant  eyes  that  seemed  to 
have  undergone  some  transfiguration,  and  she  laughed,  with  a 
terrible  merriment. 

"No,"  she  cried,  with  triumphant  joy.  "It  was  the  com- 
plete moment  of  my  life." 


468  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

And  she  looked  at  him  with  her  dazzling,  overweening 
laughter,  like  one  possessed.  A  fine  blade  seemed  to  enter 
his  heart,  but  he  did  not  care,  or  take  any  notice. 

But  they  climbed  up  the  slope  again,  and  they  flew  down 
through  the  white  flame  again,  splendidly,  splendidly.  Gud- 
run  was  laughing  and  flashing,  powdered  with  snow-crystals, 
Gerald  worked  perfectly.  He  felt  he  could  guide  the  tobog- 
gan to  a  hair-breadth,  almost  he  could  make  it  pierce  into  the 
air  and  right  into  the  very  heart  of  the  sky.  It  seemed  to 
him  the  flying  sledge  was  but  his  strength  spread  out,  he  had 
but  to  move  his  arms,  the  motion  was  his  own.  They  ex- 
plored the  great  slopes,  to  find  another  slide.  He  felt  there 
must  be  something  better  than  they  had  known.  And  he 
found  what  he  desired,  a  perfect  long,  fierce  sweep,  sheering 
past  the  foot  of  a  rock  and  into  the  trees  at  the  base.  It  was 
dangerous,  he  knew.  But  then  he  knew  also  he  would  direct 
the  sledge  between  his  fingers. 

The  first  days  passed  in  an  ecstasy  of  physical  motion, 
sleighing,  ski-ing,  skating,  moving  in  an  intensity  of  speed 
and  white  light  that  surpassed  life  itself,  and  carried  the  souls 
of  the  human  beings  beyond  into  an  inhuman  abstraction  of 
velocity  and  weight  and  eternal,  frozen  snow. 

Gerald's  eyes  became  hard  and  strange,  and  as  he  went  by 
on  his  skis  he  was  more  like  some  powerful,  fateful  sigh  than 
a  man,  his  muscles  elastic  in  a  perfect,  soaring  trajectory, 
his  body  projected  in  pure  flight,  mindless,  soulless,  whirling 
along  one  perfect  line  of  force. 

Luckily  there  came  a  day  of  snow,  when  they  must  all 
stay  indoors:  otherwise  Birkin  said,  they  would  all  lose  their 
faculties,  and  begin  to  utter  themselves  in  cries  and  shrieks, 
like  some  strange,  unknown  species  of  snow-creatures. 

It  happened  in  the  afternoon  that  Ursula  sat  in  the  Reunion- 
saal  talking  to  Loerke.  The  latter  had  seemed  unhappy 
lately.     He  was  lively  and  full  of  mischievous  humor,  as  usual. 

But  Ursula  had  thought  he  was  sulky  about  something. 
His  partner,  too,  the  big,  fair,  good-looking  youth,  was  ill  at 
ease,  going  about  as  if  he  belonged  to  nowhere,  and  was 
kept  in  some  sort  of  subjection,  against  which  he  was  re- 
belling. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  469 

Loerke  had  hardly  talked  to  Gudrun.  His  associate,  on  the 
other  hand,  had  paid  her  constantly  a  soft,  over-deferential 
attention.  Gudrun  wanted  to  talk  to  Loerke.  He  was  a 
sculptor,  and  she  wanted  to  hear  his  view  of  his  art.  And  his 
figure  attracted  her.  There  was  the  look  of  a  little  wastrel 
about  him,  that  intrigued  her,  and  an  old  man's  look,  that 
interested  her,  and  then,  beside  this,  an  uncanny  singleness,  a 
quality  of  being  by  himself,  not  in  contact  with  anybody  else, 
that  marked  out  an  artist  to  her.  He  was  a  chatterer,  a 
magpie,  a  maker  of  mischievous  word-jokes,  that  were  some- 
times very  clever,  but  which  often  were  not.  And  she  could 
see  in  his  brown,  gnome's  eyes,  the  black  look  of  inorganic 
misery,  which  lay  behind  all  his  small  buffoonery. 

His  figure  interested  her — the  figure  of  a  boy,  almost  a 
street  arab.  He  made  no  attempt  to  conceal  it.  He  always 
wore  a  simple  loden  suit,  with  knee  breeches.  His  legs  were 
thin,  and  he  made  no  attempt  to  disguise  the  fact:  which  was 
of  itself  remarkable,  in  a  German.  And  he  never  ingratiated 
himself  anywhere,  not  in  the  slightest,  but  kept  to  himself, 
for  all  his  apparent  playfulness. 

Leitner,  his  companion,  was  a  great  sportsman,  very  hand- 
some with  his  big  limbs  and  his  blue  eyes.  Loerke  would  go 
tobogganning  or  skating,  in  little  snatches,  but  he  was  indif- 
ferent. And  his  fine,  thin  nostrils,  the  nostrils  of  a  pure- 
bred street  arab,  would  quiver  with  contempt  at  Leitner's 
splothering  gymnastic  displays.  It  was  evident  that  the  two 
men  who  had  travelled  and  lived  together  in  the  last  degree  of 
intimacy,  had  now  reached  the  stage  of  loathing.  Leitner 
hated  Loerke  with  an  injured,  writhing,  impotent  hatred, 
and  Loerke  treated  Leitner  with  a  fine-quivering  contempt 
and  sarcasm.     Soon  the  two  would  have  to  go  apart. 

Already  they  were  rarely  together.  Leitner  ran  attach- 
ing himself  to  somebody  or  other,  always  deferring,  Loerke 
was  a  good  deal  alone.  Out  of  doors  he  wore  a  Westphalian 
cap,  a  close  brown-velvet  head  with  big  brown  velvet  flaps 
down  over  his  ears,  so  that  he  looked  like  a  lop-eared  rabbit, 
or  a  troll.  His  face  was  brown-red,  with  a  dry,  bright  skin, 
that  seemed  to  crinkle  with  his  mobile  expressions.  His 
eyea  were  arresting— brown,  full,  like  a  rabbit's,  or  like  a 


470  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

troll's,  or  like  the  eyes  of  a  lost  being,  having  a  strange,  dumb, 
depraved  look  of  knowledge,  and  a  quick  spark  of  uncanny 
fire.  Whenever  Gudrun  had  tried  to  talk  to  him  he  had 
shied  away  unresponsive,  looking  at  her  with  his  watchful 
dark  eyes,  but  entering  into  no  relation  with  her.  He  had  made 
her  feel  that  her  slow  French  and  her  slower  German,  were 
hateful  to  him.  As  for  his  own  inadequate  English,  he  was 
much  too  awkward  to  try  it  at  all.  But  he  understood  a 
good  deal  of  what  was  said,  nevertheless.  And  Gudrun, 
piqued,  left  him  alone. 

This  afternoon,  however,  she  came  into  the  lounge  as  he 
was  talking  to  Ursula.  His  fine,  black  hair  somehow  re- 
minded her  of  a  bat,  thin  as  it  was  on  his  full,  sensitive-looking 
head,  and  worn  away  at  the  temples.  He  sat  hunched  up, 
as  if  his  spirit  were  bat-like.  And  Gudrun  could  see  he  was 
making  some  slow  confidence  to  Ursula,  unwilling,  a  slow, 
grudging,  scanty  self-revelation.  She  went  and  sat  by  her 
sister. 

He  looked  at  her,  then  looked  away  again,  as  if  he  took 
no  notice  of  her.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  she  interested  him 
deeply. 

"Isn't  it  interesting,  Prune,"  said  Ursula,  turning  to  her 
sister,  "Herr  Loerke  is  doing  a  great  frieze  for  a  factory  in 
Cologne,  for  the  outside,  the  street." 

She  looked  at  him,  at  his  thin,  brown,  nervous  hands, 
that  were  prehensile,  and  somehow  like  talons,  like  "griffes", 
inhuman. 

"What  in?"    she  asked. 

"Aus  was?"   repeated  Ursula. 

"Granit,"  he  replied. 

It  had  become  immediately  a  laconic  series  of  question 
and  answer  between  fellow  craftsmen. 

"What  is  the  relief?"   asked  Gudrun. 

"Alto  relievo." 

"And  at  what  height?" 

It  was  very  interesting  to  Gudrun  to  think  of  his  making 
the  great  granite  frieze  for  a  great  granite  factory  in  Cologne. 
She  got  from  him  some  notion  of  the  design.  It  was  a  repre- 
sentation of  a  fair,  with  peasants  and  artizans  in  an  orgy  of 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  4*1 

enjoyment,  drunk  and  absurd  in  their  modern  dress,  whirling 
ridiculously  in  roundabouts,  gaping  at  shows,  kissing  and 
staggering  and  rolling  in  knots,  swinging  in  swing-boats,  and 
firing  down  shooting  galleries,  a  frenzy  of  chaotic  motion. 

There  was  a  swift  discussion  of  technicalities.  Gudrun 
was  very  much  impressed. 

"But  how  wonderful,  to  have  such  a  factory!"  cried  Ursula. 
"Is  the  whole  building  fine?" 

"Oh  yes,"  he  replied.  "The  frieze  is  part  of  the  whole 
architecture.     Yes,  it  is  a  colossal  thing." 

Then  he  seemed  to  stiffen,  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and 
went  on: 

"Sculpture  and  architecture  must  go  together.  The  day 
for  irrelevant  statues,  as  for  wall  pictures,  is  over.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  sculpture  is  always  part  of  an  architectural 
conception.  And  since  churches  are  all  museum  stuff,  since 
industry  is  our  business,  now,  then  let  us  make  our  places 
of  industry  our  art — our  factory-area  our  Parthenon —  ecco!" 

Ursula  pondered. 

"I  suppose,"  she  said,  "there  is  no  need  for  our  great  works 
to  be  so  hideous." 

Instantly  he  broke  into  motion. 

"There  you  are!"  he  cried.  "There  you  are!  There  is 
not  only  no  need  for  our  places  of  work  to  be  ugly,  but  their 
ugliness  ruins  the  work,  in  the  end.  Men  will  not  go  on 
submitting  to  such  intolerable  ugliness.  In  the  end  it  will 
hurt  too  much,  and  they  will  wither  because  of  it.  And  this 
will  wither  the  work  as  well.  They  will  think  the  work  itself 
is  ugly:  the  machines,  the  very  act  of  labour.  Whereas 
the  machinery  and  the  acts  of  labour  are  extremely,  madden- 
ingly beautiful.  But  this  will  be  the  end  of  our  civilisation, 
when  people  will  not  work  because  work  has  become  so  in- 
tolerable to  their  senses,  it  nauseates  them  too  much,  they 
would  rather  starve.  Then  we  shall  see  the  hammer  used 
only  for  smashing,  then  we  shall  see  it.  Yet  here  we  are — 
we  have  the  opportunity  to  make  beautiful  factories,  beauti- 
ful machine-houses — we  have  the  opportunity — " 

Gudrun  could  only  partly  understand.  She  could  have 
cried  with  vexation. 


472  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"What  does  he  say?"  she  asked  Ursula.  And  Ursula 
translated,  stammering  and  brief.  Loerke  watched  Gudrun's 
face,  to  see  her  judgment. 

"And  do  you  think  then,"  said  Gudrun,  "that  art  should 
serve  industry?" 

"Art  should  interjrret  industry,  as  art  once  interpreted 
religion,"  he  said. 

"But  does  your  fair  interpret  industry?"    she  asked  him. 

"Certainly.  What  is  man  doing,  when  he  is  at  a  fair 
like  this?  He  is  fulfilling  the  counterpart  of  labour — the 
machine  works  him,  instead  of  he  the  machine.  He  enjoys 
the  mechanical  motion,  in  his  own  body." 

"But  is  there  nothing  but  work — mechanical  work?"  said 
Gudrun. 

"Nothing  but  work!"  he  repeated,  leaning  forward,  his 
eyes  two  darknesses,  with  needle  points  of  light.  "No,  it  is 
nothing  but  this,  serving  a  machine,  or  enjoying  the  motion 
of  a  machine — motion,  that  is  all.  You  have  never  worked 
for  hunger,  or  you  would  know  what  god  governs  us." 

Gudrun  quivered  and  flushed.  For  some  reason  she  was 
almost  in  tears. 

"No,  I  have  not  worked  for  hunger,"  she  replied,  "but  I 
have  worked!" 

"TravailM — lavorato?"  he  asked.  "E  che  lavoro — che 
lavoro?  Quel  travail  est-ce  que  vous  avez  fait?" 

He  broke  into  a  mixture  of  Italian  and  French,  instinc- 
tively using  a  foreign  language  when  he  spoke  to  her. 

"You  have  never  worked  as  the  world  works,"  he  said 
to  her,  with  sarcasm. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "I  have.  And  I  do — I  work  now  for 
my  daily  bread." 

He  paused,  looked  at  her  steadily,  then  dropped  the  sub- 
ject entirely.      She  seemed  to  him  to  be  trifling. 

"But  have  you  ever  worked  as  the  world  works?"  Ursula 
asked  him. 

He  looked  at  her  untrustful. 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  with  a  surly  bark.  "I  have  known 
what  it  was  to  lie  in  bed  for  three  days,  because  I  had  nothing 
to  eat." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  473 

Gudrun  was  looking  at  him  with  large,  grave  eyes,  that 
seemed  to  draw  the  confession  from  him  as  the  marrow  from 
his  bones.  All  his  nature  held  him  back  from  confessing. 
And  yet  her  large,  grave  eyes  upon  him  seemed  to  open  some 
valve  in  his  veins,  and  involuntarily  he  was  telling. 

"My  father  was  a  man  who  did  not  like  work,  and  we  had 
no  mother.  We  lived  in  Austria,  Polish  Austria.  How 
did  we  live?  Ha! — somehow!  Mostly  in  a  room  with  three 
other  families — one  set  in  each  corner — and  the  W.  C.  in  the 
middle  of  the  room — a  pan  with  a  plank  on  it — ha!  I  had 
two  brothers  and  a  sister — and  there  might  be  a  woman  with 
my  father.  He  was  a  free  being,  in  his  way — would  fight 
with  any  man  in  the  town — a  garrison  town — and  was  a  little 
man  too. — But  he  wouldn't  work  for  anybody — set  his  heart 
against  it,  and  wouldn't." 

"And  how  did  you  live  then?"  asked  Ursula. 

He  looked  at  her — then,  suddenly,  at  Gudrun. 

"Do  you  understand?"  he  asked. 

"Enough,"  she  replied. 

Their  eyes  met  for  a  moment.  Then  he  looked  away. 
He  would  say  no  more. 

"And  how  did  you  become  a  sculptor?"  asked  Ursula. 

"How  did  I  become  a  sculptor — "  he  paused.  "Dunque — " 
he  resumed,  in  a  changed  manner,  and  beginning  to  speak 
French — "I  became  old  enough — I  used  to  steal  from  the 
market-place.  Later  I  went  to  work — imprinted  the  stamp 
on  clay  bottles,  before  they  were  baked.  It  was  an  earthen- 
ware-bottle factory.  There  I  began  making  models.  One 
day,  I  had  had  enough.  I  lay  in  the  sun  and  did  not  go  to 
work.  Then  I  walked  to  Munich — then  I  walked  to  Italy — 
begging,  begging  everything. 

The  Italians  were  very  good  to  me — they  were  good  and 
honourable  to  me.  From  Bozen  to  Rome,  almost  every  night 
I  had  a  meal  and  a  bed,  perhaps  of  straw,  with  some  peasant. 
I  love  the  Italian  people,  with  all  my  heart. 

"Dunque,  adesso — maintenant — I  earn  a  thousand  pounds 
in  a  year,  or  I  earn  two  thousand — " 

He  looked  down  at  the  ground,  his  voice  tailing  off  into 
silence. 


474  WOMEN  IN   LOVE 

Gudrun  looked  at  his  fine,  thin,  shiny  skin,  reddish-brown 
from  the  sun,  drawn  tight  over  his  full  temples;  and  at  his 
thin  hair — ,  and  at  the  thick,  coarse,  brush-like  moustache, 
cut  short  about  his  mobile,  rather  shapeless  mouth. 

"How  old  are  you?"   she  asked. 

He  looked  up  at  her  with  his  full,  elfin  eyes  startled. 

"Wie  alt!"  he  repeated.  And  he  hesitated.  It  was 
evidently  one  of  his  reticencies. 

"How  old  are  you?"  he  replied,  without  answering. 

"I  am  twenty-six,"  she  answered. 

"Twenty-six,"  he  repeated,  looking  into  her  eyes.  He 
paused.      Then  he  said: 

"Und  lhr  Herr  Gemahl,  wie  alt  is  er?" 

"Who!"   asked  Gudrun. 

"Your  husband,"  said  Ursula,  with  a  certain  irony. 

"I  haven't  got  a  husband,"  said  Gudrun  in  English.  In 
German  she  answered, 

"He  is  thirty-one." 

But.  Loerke  was  watching  closely,  with  his  uncanny,  full, 
suspicious  eyes.  Something  in  Gudrun  seemed  to  accord  with 
him.  He  was  really  like  one  of  the  "little  people"  who  have 
no  soul,  and  has  found  his  mate  in  a  human  being.  But  he 
suffered  in  his  discovery.  She  too  was  fascinated  by  him,  fas- 
cinated as  if  some  strange  creature,  a  rabbit  or  a  bat,  or  a  brown 
seal  had  begun  to  talk  to  her.  But  also,  she  knew  what  he 
was  unconscious  of,  his  tremendous  power  of  understanding, 
of  apprehending  her  living  motion.  He  did  not  know  his 
own  power.  He  did  not  know  how,  with  his  full,  submerged, 
watchful  eyes,  he  could  look  into  her  and  see  her,  what  she 
was,  see  her  secrets.  He  would  only  want  her  to  be  herself — 
he  knew  her  verily,  with  a  subconscious,  sinister  knowledge, 
devoid  of  illusions  and  hopes. 

To  Gudrun,  there  was  in  Loerke  the  rock-bottom  of  all 
life.  Everybody  else  had  their  illusion,  must  have  their 
illusion,  their  before  and  after.  But  he,  with  a  perfect 
stoicism,  did  without  any  before  and  after,  dispensed  with  all 
illusion.  He  did  not  deceive  himself  in  the  last  issue.  In 
the  last  issue  he  cared  about  nothing,  he  was  troubled  about 
nothing,  he  made  not  the  slightest  attempt  to  be  at  one  with 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  475 

anything.  He  existed  a  pure,  unconnected  will,  stoical  and 
momentaneous.     There  was  only  his  work. 

It  was  curious  too,  how  his  poverty,  the  degradation  of  his 
earlier  life,  attracted  her.  There  was  something  insipid  and 
tasteless  to  her,  in  the  idea  of  a  gentleman,  a  man  who  had 
gone  the  usual  course  through  school  and  university.  A 
certain  violent  sympathy,  however,  came  up  in  her  for  this 
mud-child.  He  seemed  to  be  the  very  stuff  of  the  under- 
world of  life.     There  was  no  going  beyond  him. 

Ursula  too  was  attracted  by  Loerke.  In  both  sisters  he 
commanded  a  certain  homage.  But  there  were  moments  when 
to  Ursula  he  seemed  indescribably  inferior,  false,  a  vulgarism. 

Both  Birkin  and  Gerald  disliked  him,  Gerald  ignoring 
him  with  some  contempt,  Birkin  exasperated. 

"What  do  the  women  find  so  impressive  in  that  little  brat?" 
Gerald  asked. 

"God  alone  knows,"  replied  Birkin,  "unless  it's  some  sort 
of  appeal  he  makes  to  them,  which  flatters  them  and  has  such 
a  power  over  them." 

Gerald  looked  up  in  surprise. 

"Does  he  make  an  appeal  to  them?"  he  asked. 

"Oh  yes,"  replied  Birkin.  "He  is  the  perfectly  subjected 
being,  existing  almost  like  a  criminal.  And  the  women  rush 
towards  that,  like  a  current  of  air  towards  a  vacuum." 

"Funny  they  should  rush  to  that,"  said  Gerald. 

"Makes  one  mad,  too,"  said  Birkin.  "But  he  has  the 
fascination  of  pity  and  repulsion  for  them,  a  little  obscene 
monster  of  the  darkness  that  he  is." 

Gerald  stood  still,  suspended  in  thought. 

"What  do  women  want,  at  the  bottom?"   he  asked. 

Birkin  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"God  knows,"  he  said.  "Some  satisfaction  in  basic 
repulsion,  it  seems  to  me.  They  seem  to  creep  down  some 
ghastly  tunnel  of  darkness,  and  will  never  be  satisfied  till 
they've  come  to  the  end." 

Gerald  looked  out  into  the  mist  of  fine  snow  that  was 
blowing  by.      Everywhere  was  blind  to-day,  horribly  blind. 

"And  what  is  the  end?"  he  asked. 

Birkin  shook  his  head. 


476  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"I've  not  got  there  yet,  so  I  don't  know.  Ask  Loerke, 
he's  pretty  near.  He  is  a  good  many  stages  further  than  either 
you  or  I  can  go." 

"Yes,  but  stages  further  in  what?"   cried  Gerald,  irritated. 

Birkin  sighed,  and  gathered  his  brows  into  a  knot  of  anger. 

"Stages  further  in  social  hatred,"  he  said.  "He  lives 
like  a  rat,  in  the  river  of  corruption,  just  where  it  falls  over 
into  the  bottomless  pit.  He's  further  on  than  we  are.  He 
hates  the  ideal  more  acutely.  He  hates  the  ideal  utterly,  yet  it 
still  dominates  him.    I  expect  he  is  a  Jew — or  part  Jewish." 

"Probably,"  said  Gerald. 

"He  is  a  gnawing  little  negation,  gnawing  at  the  roots  of 
life." 

"But  why  does  anybody  care  about  him?"    cried  Gerald. 

"Because  they  hate  the  ideal  also,  in  their  souls.  They 
want  to  explore  the  sewers,  and  he's  the  wizard  rat  that 
swims  ahead." 

Still  Gerald  stood  and  stared  at  the  blind  haze  of  snow  out- 
side. 

"I  don't  understand  your  terms,  really,"  he  said,  in  a  flat, 
doomed  voice.      "But  it  sounds  a  rum  sort  of  desire." 

"I  suppose  you  want  the  same,"  said  Birkin.  "Only 
you  want  to  take  a  quick  jump  downwards,  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy 
— and  he  ebbs  with  the  stream,  the  sewer  stream." 

Meanwhile  Gudrun  and  Ursula  waited  for  the  next  oppor- 
tunity to  talk  to  Loerke.  It  was  no  use  beginning  when  the 
men  were  there.  Then  they  could  get  into  no  touch  with  the 
isolated  little  sculptor.  He  had  to  be  alone  with  them. 
And  he  preferred  Ursula  to  be  there,  as  a  sort  of  transmitter 
to  Gudrun. 

"Do  you  do  nothing  but  architectural  sculpture?"  Gud- 
run asked  him  one  evening. 

"Not  now,"  he  replied.  "I  have  done  all  sorts — except 
portraits — I  never  did  portraits.      But  other  things — " 

"What  kind  of  things?"   asked  Gudrun. 

He  paused  a  moment,  then  rose,  and  went  out  of  the  room. 
He  returned  almost  immediately  with  a  little  roll  of  paper, 
which  he  handed  to  her.  She  unrolled  it.  It  was  a  photo- 
gravure reproduction  of  a  statuette,  signed  F.  Loerke. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  477 

"That  is  quite  an  early  thing — not  mechanical,"  he  said, 
"more  popular." 

The  statuette  was  of  a  naked  girl,  small,  finely  made, 
sitting  on  a  great  naked  horse.  The  girl  was  young  and  tender, 
a  mere  bud.  She  was  sitting  sideways  on  the  horse,  her  face 
in  her  hands,  as  if  in  shame  and  grief,  in  a  little  abandon. 
Her  hair,  which  was  short  and  must  be  flaxen,  fell  forward, 
divided,  half  covering  her  hands. 

Her  limbs  were  young  and  tender.  Her  legs,  scarcely 
formed  yet,  the  legs  of  a  maiden  just  passing  towards  cruel 
womanhood,  dangled  childishly  over  the  side  of  the  powerful 
horse,  pathetically,  the  small  feet  folded  one  over  the  other, 
as  if  to  hide.  But  there  was  no  hiding.  There  she  was  exposed 
naked  on  the  naked  flank  of  the  horse. 

The  horse  stood  stock  still,  stretched  in  a  kind  of  start. 
It  was  a  massive,  magnificent  stallion,  rigid  with  pent-up 
power.  Its  neck  was  arched  and  terrible,  like  a  sickle,  its 
flanks  were  pressed  back,  rigid  with  power. 

Gudrun  went  pale,  and  a  darkness  came  over  her  eyes, 
like  shame,  she  looked  up  with  a  certain  supplication,  almost 
slave-like.     He  glanced  at  her,  and  jerked  his  head  a  little. 

"How  big  is  it?"  she  asked,  in  a  toneless  voice,  persisting  in 
appearing  casual  and  unaffected. 

"How  big?"  he  replied,  glancing  again  at  her.  "Without 
pedestal — so  high — "  he  measured  with  his  hand — "with 
pedestal,  so — " 

He  looked  at  her  steadily.  There  was  a  little  brusque, 
turgid  contempt  for  her  in  his  swift  gesture,  and  she  seemed 
to  cringe  a  little. 

"And  what  is  it  done  in?"  she  asked,  throwing  back  her 
head  and  looking  at  him  with  affected  coldness. 

He  still  gazed  at  her  steadily,  and  his  dominance  was  not 
shaken. 

"Bronze — green  bronze." 

"Green  bronze!"  repeated  Gudrun,  coldly  accepting  his 
challenge.  She  was  thinking  of  the  slender,  immature, 
tender  limbs  of  the  girl,  smooth  and  cold  in  green  bronze. 

"Yes,  beautiful,"  she  murmured,  looking  up  at  him  with  a 
certain  dark  homage. 


478  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

He  closed  his  eyes  and  looked  aside,  triumphant. 

"Why,"  said  Ursula,  "did  you  make  the  horse  so  stiff? 
It  is  as  stiff  as  a  block." 

"Stiff?"  he  repeated,  in  arms  at  once. 

"Yes.  Look  how  stock  and  stupid  and  brutal  it  is.  Horses 
are  sensitive,  quite  delicate  and  sensitive,  really." 

He  raised  his  shoulders,  spread  his  hands  in  a  shrug  of 
slow  indifference,  as  much  as  to  inform  her  she  was  an  amateur 
and  an  impertinent  nobody. 

"Wissen  Sie,"  he  said,  with  an  insulting  patience  and 
condescension  in  his  voice,  "that  horse  is  a  certain  form, 
part  of  a  whole  form.  It  is  part  of  a  work  of  art,  a  piece  of 
form.  It  is  not  a  picture  of  a  friendly  horse  to  which  you  give 
a  lump  of  sugar,  do  you  see — it  is  part  of  a  work  of  art,  it 
has  no  relation  to  anything  outside  that  work  of  art." 

Ursula,  angry  at  being  treated  quite  so  insultingly  de  haul 
en  has,  from  the  height  of  esoteric  art  to  the  depth  of  general 
exoteric  amateurism,  replied,  hotly,  flushing  and  lifting  her  face. 

"But  it  is  a  picture  of  a  horse,  nevertheless." 

He  lifted  his  shoulders  in  another  shrug. 

"As  you  like — it  is  not  a  picture  of  a  cow,  certainly." 

Here  Gudrun  broke  in,  flushed  and  brilliant,  anxious  to 
avoid  any  more  of  this,  any  more  of  Ursula's  foolish  persist- 
ence in  giving  herself  away. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  'it  is  a  picture  of  a  horse?'"  she 
cried  at  her  sister.  "What  do  you  mean  by  a  horse?  You 
mean  an  idea  you  have  in  your  head,  and  which  you  want 
to  see  represented.  There  is  another  idea  altogether,  quite 
another  idea.  Call  it  a  horse  if  you  like,  or  say  it  is  not  a 
horse.  I  have  just  as  much  right  to  say  that  your  horse 
isn't  a  horse,  that  it  is  a  falsity  of  your  own  make-up." 

Ursula  wavered,  baffled.      Then  her  words  came. 

"But  why  does  he  have  this  idea  of  a  horse!"  she  said.  "I 
know  it  is  his  idea.    I  know  it  is  a  picture  of  himself,  really — " 

Loerke  snorted  with  rage. 

"A  picture  of  myself!"  he  repeated,  in  derision.  "Wissen 
sie,  gnadige  Frau,  that  is  a  Kunstwerk,  a  work  of  art.  It  is  a 
work  of  art,  it  is  a  picture  of  nothing,  of  absolutely  nothing. 
It  has  nothing  to  do  with  anything  but  itself,  it  has  no  rela- 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  479 

tion  with  the  everyday  world  of  this  and  other,  there  is  no 
connection  between  them,  absolutely  none,  they  are  two  dif- 
ferent and  distinct  planes  of  existence,  and  to  translate  one 
into  the  other  is  worse  than  foolish,  it  is  a  darkening  of  all 
counsel,  a  making  confusion  everywhere.  Do  you  see,  you 
must  not  confuse  the  relative  work  of  action,  with  the  absolute 
world  of  art.     That  you  must  not  do." 

"That  is  quite  true,"  cried  Gudrun,  let  loose  in  a  sort  of 
rhapsody.  "The  two  things  are  quite  and  permanently 
apart,  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  one  another.  /  and  my 
art,  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  each  other.  My  art  stands 
in  another  world,  I  am  in  this  world." 

Her  face  was  flushed  and  transfigured.  Loerke  who  was 
sitting  with  his  head  ducked,  like  some  creature  at  bay,  looked 
up  at  her,  swiftly,  almost  furtively,  and  murmured. 

"Ja — so  ist  es,  so  ist  es." 

Ursula  was  silent  after  this  outburst.  She  was  furious. 
She  wanted  to  poke  a  hole  into  them  both. 

"It  isn't  a  word  of  it  true,  of  all  this  harangue  you  have 
made  me,"  she  replied  flatly.  "The  horse  is  a  picture  of 
your  own  stock,  stupid  brutality,  and  the  girl  was  a  girl  you 
loved  and  tortured  and  then  ignored." 

He  looked  up  at  her  with  a  small  smile  of  contempt  in  his 
eyes.      He  would  not  trouble  to  answer  this  last  charge. 

Gudrun  too  was  silent  in  exasperated  contempt.  Ursula 
teas  such  an  insufferable  outsider,  rushing  in  where  angels 
would  fear  to  tread.  But  then— fools  must  be  suffered,  if 
not  gladly. 

But  Ursula  was  persistent  too. 

"As  for  your  world  of  art  and  your  world  of  reality,"  she 
replied,  "you  have  to  separate  the  two,  because  you  can't 
bear  to  know  what  you  are.  You  can't  bear  to  realise  what 
a  stock,  stiff,  hide-bound  brutality  you  are  really,  so  you 
say  'it's  the  world  of  art.'  The  world  of  art  is  only  the  truth 
about  the  real  world,  that's  all — but  you  are  too  far  gone  to 
see  it." 

She  was  white  and  trembling,  intent.  Gudrun  and  Loerke 
sat  in  stiff  dislike  of  her.  Gerald  too,  who  had  come  up  in 
the  beginning  of  the  speech,  stood  looking  at  her  in  complete 


480  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

disapproval  and  opposition.  He  felt  she  was  undignified, 
she  put  a  sort  of  vulgarity  over  the  esotericism  which  gave  man 
his  last  distinction.  He  joined  his  forces  with  the  other  two. 
They  all  three  wanted  her  to  go  away.  But  she  sat  on  in 
silence,  her  soul  weeping,  throbbing  violently,  her  fingers 
twisting  her  handkerchief. 

The  others  maintained  a  dead  silence,  letting  the  display 
of  Ursula's  obtrusiveness  pass  by.  Then  Gudrun  asked,  in 
a  voice  that  was  quite  cool  and  casual,  as  if  resuming  a  casual 
conversation : 

"Was  the  girl  a  model?" 

"Nein,  sie  war  kein  Modell.  Sie  war  eine  kleine  Mal- 
schulerin." 

"An  art-student!"  replied  Gudrun. 

And  how  the  situation  revealed  itself  to  her!  She  saw  the 
girl  art-student,  unformed  and  of  pernicious  recklessness, 
too  young,  her  straight  flaxen  hair  cut  short,  hanging,  just 
into  her  neck,  curving  inwards  slightly,  because  it  was  rather 
thick;  and  Loerke,  the  well-known  master-sculptor,  and 
the  girl,  probably  well-brought-up,  and  of  good  family,  thinking 
herself  so  great  to  be  his  mistress.  Oh  how  well  she  knew 
the  common  callousness  of  it  all.  Dresden,  Paris,  or  London, 
what  did  it  matter?  She  knew  it. 

"Where  is  she  now?"   Ursula  asked. 

Loerke  raised  his  shoulders,  to  convey  his  complete  ignor- 
ance and  indifference. 

"That  is  already  six  years  ago,"  he  said;  "she  will  be 
twenty-three  years  old,  no  more  good." 

Gerald  had  picked  up  the  picture  and  was  looking  at  it. 
It  attracted  him  also.  He  saw  on  the  pedestal,  that  the  picee 
was  called  "Lady  Godiva." 

"But  this  isn't  Lady  Godiva,"  he  said,  smiling  good- 
humouredly.  "She  was  the  middle-aged  wife  of  some  Earl 
or  other,  who  covered  herself  with  her  long  hair." 

"A  la  Maud  Allan,"  said  Gudrun  with  a  mocking  grimace. 

"Why  Maud  Allan?"  he  replied.  "Isn't  it  so? — I  always 
thought  the  legend  was  that." 

"Yes,  Gerald  dear,  I'm  quite  sure  you've  got  the  legend 
perfectly." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  481 

She  was  laughing  at  him,  with  a  little,  mock-caressive 
contempt. 

"To  be  sure,  I'd  rather  see  the  woman  than  the  hair,"  he 
laughed  in  return. 

"Wouldn't  you  just!"  mocked  Gudrun. 

Ursula  rose  and  went  away,  leaving  the  three  together. 

Gudrun  took  the  picture  from  Gerald,  and  sat  looking 
at  it  closely. 

"Of  course,"  she  said,  turning  to  tease  Loerke  now,  "you 
understood  your  little  Malschulerin." 

He  raised  his  eyebrows  and  his  shoulders  in  a  complacent 
shrug. 

"The  little  girl?"  asked  Gerald,  pointing  to  the  figure. 

Gudrun  was  sitting  with  the  picture  in  her  lap.  She 
looked  up  at  Gerald,  full  into  his  eyes,  so  that  he  seemed  to 
be  blinded. 

"Didn't  he  understand  her !"  she  said  to  Gerald,  in  a  slightly 
mocking,  humourous  playfulness.  "You've  only  to  look  at 
the  feet — aren't  they  darling,  so  pretty  and  tender — oh, 
they're  really  wonderful,  they  are  really — " 

She  lifted  her  eyes  slowly,  with  a  hot,  flaming  look  into 
Loerke's  eyes.  His  soul  was  filled  with  her  burning  recog- 
nition, he  seemed  to  grow  more  uppish  and  lordly. 

Gerald  looked  at  the  small,  sculptured  feet.  They  were 
turned  together,  half  covering  each  other  in  pathetic  shyness 
and  fear.  He  looked  at  them  a  long  time,  fascinated.  Then, 
in  some  pain,  he  put  the  picture  away  from  him.  He  felt  full 
of  barrenness. 

"What  was  her  name?"   Gudrun  asked  Loerke. 

"Annette  von  Week,"  Loerke  replied  reminiscent.  "Ja, 
sie  war  hubsch.  She  was  pretty — but  she  was  tiresome. 
She  was  a  nuisance, — not  for  a  minute  would  she  keep  still — 
not  until  I'd  slapped  her  hard  and  made  her  cry — then  she'd 
sit  for  five  minutes." 

He  was  thinking  over  the  work,  his  work,  the  all  important 
to  him. 

"Did  you  really  slap  her?"   asked  Gudrun,  coolly. 

He  glanced  back  at  her,  reading  her  challenge. 

"Yes,  I  did,"  he  said,  nonchalant,  "harder  than  I  have 


482  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

ever  beat  anything  in  my  life.  I  had  to,  I  had  to — it  was  the 
only  way  I  got  the  work  done." 

Gudrun  watched  him  with  large,  dark-filled  eyes,  for  some 
moments.  She  seemed  to  be  considering  his  very  soul.  Then 
she  looked  down,  in  silence. 

"Why  did  you  have  such  a  young  Godiva  then?"  asked 
Gerald.  "She  is  so  small,  besides,  on  the  horse — not  big 
enough  for  it — such  a  child." 

A  queer  spasm  went  over  Loerke's  face. 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "I  don't  like  them  any  bigger,  any  older. 
Then  they  are  beautiful,  at  sixteen,  seventeen,  eighteen — 
after  that,  they  are  no  use  to  me." 

There  was  a  moment's  pause. 

"Why  not?"  asked  Gerald. 

Loerke  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"I  don't  find  them  interesting — or  beautiful — they  are  no 
good  to  me,  for  my  work." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  a  woman  isn't  beautiful  after  she  is 
twenty?"   asked  Gerald. 

"For  me,  no.  Before  twenty,  she  is  small  and  fresh  and 
tender  and  slight.  After  that — ler  her  be  what  she  likes, 
she  has  nothing  for  me.  The  Venus  of  Milo  is  a  bourgeoise — 
so  are  they  all." 

"And  you  don't  care  for  women  at  all  after  twenty?" 
asked  Gerald. 

"They  are  no  good  to  me,  they  are  of  no  use  in  my  art," 
Loerke  repeated  impatiently.      "I  don't  find  them  beautiful." 

"You  are  an  epicure,"  said  Gerald,  with  a  slight  sarcastic 
laugh. 

"And  what  about  men?"   asked  Gudrun  suddenly. 

"Yes,  they  are  good  at  all  ages,"  replied  Loerke.  "A 
man  should  be  big  and  powerful — whether  he  is  old  or  young 
is  of  no  account,  so  he  has  the  size,  something  of  massiveness 
and — and  stupid  form." 

Ursula  went  out  alone  into  the  world  of  pure,  new  snow. 
But  the  dazzling  whiteness  seemed  to  beat  upon  her  till  it 
hurt  her,  she  felt  the  cold  was  slowly  strangling  her  soul. 
Her  head  felt  dazed  and  numb. 

Suddenly  she  wanted  to  go  away.      It  occurred  to  her, 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  483 

like  a  miracle,  that  she  might  go  away  into  another  world. 
She  had  felt  so  doomed  up  here  in  the  eternal  snow,  as  if 
there  were  no  beyond. 

Now  suddenly,  as  by  a  miracle  she  remembered  that  away 
beyond,  below  her,  lay  the  dark  fruitful  earth,  that  towards 
the  south  there  were  stretches  of  land  dark  with  orange  trees 
and  cypress,  grey  with  olives,  that  ilex  trees  lifted  wonderful 
plumy  tufts  in  shadow  against  a  blue  sky.  Miracle  of  miracles ! 
— this  utterly  silent,  frozen  world  of  the  mountain-tops  was 
not  universal!  One  might  leave  it  and  have  done  with  it. 
One  might  go  away. 

She  wanted  to  realise  the  miracle  at  once.  She  wanted 
at  this  instant  to  have  done  with  the  snow-world,  the  terrible, 
static  ice-built  mountain  tops.  She  wanted  to  see  the  dark 
earth,  to  smell  its  earthy  fecundity,  to  see  the  patient  wintry 
vegetation,  to  feel  the  sunshine  touch  a  response  in  the  buds. 

She  went  back  gladly  to  the  house,  full  of  hope.  Birkin 
was  reading,  lying  in  bed. 

"Rupert,"  she  said,  bursting  in  on  him.  "I  want  to  go 
away." 

He  looked  up  at  her  slowly. 

"Do  you?"  he  replied  mildly. 

She  sat  by  him  and  put  her  arms  round  his  neck.  It 
surprised  her  that  he  was  so  little  surprised. 

"Don't  you!"   she  asked  troubled. 

"I  hadn't  thought  about  it,"  he  said.  "But  I'm  sure  I 
do." 

She  sat  up,  suddenly  erect. 

"I  hate  it,"  she  said.  "I  hate  the  snow,  and  the  un- 
naturalness  of  it,  the  unnatural  light  it  throws  on  everybody, 
the  ghastly  glamour,  the  unnatural  feelings  it  makes  every- 
body have." 

He  lay  still  and  laughed,  meditating. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "we  can  go  away — we  can  to  to-morrow. 
We'll  go  to-morrow  to  Verona,  and  be  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and 
sit  in  the  amphitheatre — shall  we?" 

Suddenly  she  hid  her  face  against  his  shoulder  with  per- 
plexity and  shyness.      He  lay  so  untrammelled. 

"Yes,"  she  said  softly,  filled  with  relief.      She  felt  her  soul 


484  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

had  new  wings,  now  he  was  so  uncaring.  "I  shall  love  to  be 
Romeo  and  Juliet,"  she  said.     "My  love!" 

"Though  a  fearfully  cold  wind  blows  in  Verona,"  he  said, 
"from  out  of  the  Alps.  We  shall  have  the  smell  of  the  snow 
in  our  noses." 

She  sat  up  and  looked  at  him. 

"Are  you  glad  to  go?"  she  asked,  troubled. 

His  eyes  were  inscrutable  and  laughing.  She  hid  her  face 
against  his  neck,  clinging  close  to  him,  pleading: 

"Don't  laugh  at  me — don't  laugh  at  me." 

"Why  how's  that?"  he  laughed,  putting  his  arms  round  her. 

"Because  I  don't  want  to  be  laughed  at,"  she  whispered. 

He  laughed  more,  as  he  kissed  her  delicate,  finely  per- 
fumed hair. 

"Do  you  love  me?"  she  whispered,  in  wild  seriousness. 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  laughing. 

Suddenly  she  lifted  her  mouth  to  be  kissed.  Her  lips  were 
taut  and  quivering  and  strenuous,  his  were  soft,  deep  and 
delicate.  He  waited  a  few  moments  in  the  kiss.  Then  a 
shade  of  sadness  went  over  his  soul. 

"Your  mouth  is  so  hard,"  he  said,  in  faint  reproach. 

"And  yours  is  so  soft  and  nice,"  she  said  gladly. 

"But  why  do  you  always  grip  your  lips?"  he  asked, 
regretful. 

"Never  mind,"  she  said  swiftly.     "It  is  my  way." 

She  knew  he  loved  her;  she  was  sure  of  him.  Yet  she 
could  not  let  go  a  certain  hold  over  herself,  she  could  not  bear 
him  to  question  her.  She  gave  herself  up  in  delight  to  being 
loved  by  him.  She  knew  that,  in  spite  of  his  joy  when  she  aban- 
doned herself,  he  was  a  little  bit  saddened  too.  She  could 
give  herself  up  to  his  activity.  But  she  could  not  be  herself, 
she  dared  not  come  forth  quite  nakedly  to  his  nakedness, 
abandoning  all  adjustment,  lapsing  in  pure  faith  with  him. 
She  abandoned  herself  to  him,  or  she  took  hold  of  him  and 
gathered  her  joy  of  him.  And  she  enjoyed  him  fully.  But 
they  were  never  quite  together,  at  the  same  moment,  one  was 
always  a  little  left  out.  Nevertheless  she  was  glad  in  hope, 
glorious  and  free,  full  of  life  and  liberty.  And  he  was  still 
and  soft  and  patient,  for  the  time. 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  485 

They  made  their  preparations  to  leave  the  next  day. 
First  they  went  to  Gudrun's  room,  where  she  and  Gerald 
were  just  dressed  ready  for  the  evening  indoors. 

"Prune,"  said  Ursula,  "I  think  we  shall  go  away  to-morrow. 
I  can't  stand  the  snow  any  more.  It  hurts  my  skin  and  my 
soul." 

"Does  it  really  hurt  your  soul,  Ursula?"  asked  Gudrun, 
in  some  surprise.  "I  can  believe  quite  it  hurts  your  skin — 
it  is  terrible.     But  I  thought  it  was  admirable  for  the  soul." 

"No,  not  for  mine.     It  just  injures  it,"  said  Ursula. 

"Really!"  cried  Gudrun. 

There  was  a  silence  in  the  room.  And  Ursula  and  Birkin 
could  feel  that  Gudrun  and  Gerald  were  relieved  by  their 
going. 

"You  will  go  south?"  said  Gerald,  a  little  ring  of  uneasi- 
ness in  his  voice. 

"Yes,"  said  Birkin,  turning  away.  There  was  a  queer, 
indefinable  hostility  between  the  two  men,  lately.  Birkin  was 
on  the  whole  dim  and  indifferent,  drifting  along  in  a  dim, 
easy  flow,  unnoticing  and  patient,  since  he  came  abroad, 
whilst  Gerald  on  the  other  hand,  was  intense  and  gripped  into 
white  light,  agonistes.      The  two  men  revoked  one  another. 

Gerald  and  Gudrun  were  very  kind  to  the  two  who  were 
departing,  solicitous  for  their  welfare  as  if  they  were  two 
children.  Gudrun  came  to  Ursula's  bedroom  with  three 
pairs  of  the  coloured  stockings  for  which  she  was  notorious, 
and  she  threw  them  on  the  bed.  But  these  were  thick  silk 
stockings,  vermilion,  cornflower  blue,  and  grey,  bought  in 
Paris.  The  grey  ones  were  knitted,  seamless  and  heavy. 
Ursula  was  in  raptures.  She  knew  Gudrun  must  be  feeling 
very  loving,  to  give  away  such  treasures. 

"I  can't  take  them  from  you,  Prune,"  she  cried.  "I 
can't  possibly  deprive  you  of  them — the  jewels." 

"Aren't  they  jewels!  cried  Gudrun,  eyeing  her  gifts  with 
an  envious  eye.     "Aren't  they  real  lambs!" 

"Yes,  you  must  keep  them,"  said  Ursula. 

"I  don't  want  them,  I've  got  three  more  pairs.  I  want 
you  to  keep  them — I  want  you  to  have  them.     They're  yours, 


486  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

And  with  trembling,  excited  hands  she  put  the  coveted 
stockings  under  Ursula's  pillow. 

"One  gets  the  greatest  joy  of  all  out  of  really  lovely 
stockings,"  said  Ursula. 

"One  does,"  replied  Gudrun;    "the  greatest  joy  of  all." 

And  she  sat  down  in  the  chair.  It  was  evident  she  had 
come  for  a  last  talk.  Ursula,  not  knowing  what  she  wanted, 
waited  in  silence. 

"Do  you  feel,  Ursula,"  Gudrun  began,  rather  sceptically, 
"that  you  are  going-away-for-ever,  never- to-return,  sort  of 
thing?" 

"Oh,  we  shall  come  back,"  said  Ursula.  "It  isn't  a  question 
of  train-journeys." 

"Yes,  I  know.  But  spiritually,  so  to  speak,  you  are  going 
away  from  us  all?" 

Ursula  quivered. 

"I  don't  know  a  bit  what  is  going  to  happen,"  she  said. 
"I  only  know  we  are  going  somewhere." 

Gudrun  waited. 

"And  you  are  glad?"   she  asked. 

Ursula  meditated  for  a  moment. 

"I  believe  I  am  very  glad,"  she  replied. 

But  Gudrun  read  the'  unconscious  brightness  on  her 
sister's  face,  rather  than  the  uncertain  tones  of  her  speech. 

"But  don't  you  think  you'll  want  the  old  connection  with 
the  world — father  and  the  rest  of  us,  and  all  that  it  means, 
England  and  the  world  of  thought — don't  you  think  you'll 
need  that,  really  to  make  a  world?" 

Ursula  was  silent,  trying  to  imagine. 

"I  think,"  she  said  at  length,  involuntarily,  "that  Rupert 
is  right — one  wants  a  new  space  to  be  in,  and  one  falls  away 
from  the  old." 

Gudrun  watched  her  sister  with  impassive  face  and  steady 
eyes. 

"One  wants  a  new  space  to  be  in,  I  quite  agree,"  she  said. 
"But  /  think  that  a  new  world  is  a  development  from  this 
world,  and  that  to  isolate  oneself  with  one  other  person,  isn't 
to  find  a  new  world  at  all,  but  only  to  secure  oneself  in  one's 
illusions." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  487 

Ursula  looked  out  of  the  window.  In  her  soul  she  began 
to  wTestle,  and  she  was  frightened.  She  was  always  frightened 
of  words,  because  she  knew  that  mere  word -force  could 
always  make  her  believe  what  she  did  not  believe. 

"Perhaps,"  she  said,  full  of  mistrust,  of  herself  and  every- 
body. "But,"  she  added,  "I  do  think  that  one  can't  have 
anything  new  whilst  one  cares  for  the  old — do  you  know  what 
I  mean? — even  fighting  the  old  is  belonging  to  it.  I  know, 
one  is  tempted  to  stop  with  the  world,  just  to  fight  it.  But 
then  it  isn't  worth  it." 

Gudrun  considered  herself. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "In  a  way,  one  is  of  the  world  if  one  lives 
in  it.  But  isn't  it  really  an  illusion  to  think  you  can  get  out 
of  it?  After  all,  a  cottage  in  the  Abruzzi,  or  wherever  it  may 
be,  isn't  a  new  world.  No,  the  only  thing  to  do  with  the 
world,  is  to  see  it  through." 

Ursula  looked  away.      She  was  so  frightened  of  argument. 

"But  there  can  be  something  else,  can't  there?"  she  said. 
"One  can  see  it  through  in  one's  soul,  long  enough  before  it 
sees  itself  through  in  actuality.  And  then,  when  one  has 
seen  one's  soul,  one  is  something  else." 

"Can  one  see  it  through  in  one's  soul?"  asked  Gudrun. 
"If  you  mean  that  you  can  see  to  the  end  of  what  will  happen, 
I  don't  agree.  I  really  can't  agree.  And  anyhow,  you 
can't  suddenly  fly  off  on  to  a  new  planet,  because  you  think 
you  can  see  to  the  end  of  this." 

Ursula  suddenly  straightened  herself. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "Yes — one  knows.  One  has  no  more 
connections  here.  One  has  a  sort  of  other  self,  that  belongs 
to  a  new  planet,  not  to  this. — You've  got  to  hop  off." 

Gudrun  reflected  for  a  few  moments.  Then  a  smile  of 
ridicule,  almost  of  contempt,  came  over  her  face. 

"And  what  will  happen  when  you  find  yourself  in  space?" 
she  cried  in  derision.  "After  all,  the  great  ideas  of  the  world 
are  the  same  there.  You  above  everybody  can't  get  away 
from  the  fact  that  love,  for  instance,  is  the  supreme  thing, 
in  space  as  well  as  on  earth." 

"No,"  said  Ursula,  "it  isn't.  Love  is  too  human  and  little. 
I  bdfaw  in  something  inhuman,  of  which  love  is  only  a  little 


488  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

part.  I  believe  what  we  must  fulfil  comes  out  of  the  unknown 
to  us,  and  it  is  something  infinitely  more  than  love.  It 
isn't  so  merely  human." 

Gudrun  looked  at  Ursula  with  steady,  balancing  eyes. 
She  admired  and  despised  her  sister  so  much,  both!  Then, 
suddenly  she  averted  her  face,  saying  coldly,  uglily: 

"Well,  I've  got  no  further  than  love,  yet." 

Over  Ursula's  mind  flashed  the  thought:  "Because  you 
never  have  loved,  you  can't  get  beyond  it." 

Gudrun  rose,  came  over  to  Ursula  and  put  her  arm  round 
her  neck. 

"Go  and  find  your  new  world,  dear,"  she  said,  her  voice 
clanging  with  false  benignity.  "After  all,  the  happiest 
voyage  is  the  quest  of  Rupert's  Blessed  Isles." 

Her  arm  rested  round  Ursula's  neck,  her  fingers  on  Ursula's 
cheek  for  a  few  moments.  Ursula  was  supremely  uncom- 
fortable meanwhile.  There  was  an  insult  in  Gudrun's  pro- 
tective patronage  that  was  really  too  hurting.  Feeling  her 
sister's  resistance,  Gudrun  drew  awkwardly  away,  turned  over 
the  pillow,  and  disclosed  the  stockings  again. 

"Ha — ha!"  she  laughed,  rather  hollowly.  "How  we  do 
talk  indeed — new  worlds  and  old — !". 

And  they  passed  to  the  familiar  worldly  subjects. 

Gerald  and  Birkin  had  walked  on  ahead,  waiting  for  the 
sledge  to  overtake  them,  conveying  the  departing  guests. 

"How  much  longer  will  you  stay  here?"  asked  Birkin, 
glancing  up  at  Gerald's  very  red,  almost  blank  face. 

"Oh,  I  can't  say,"  Gerald  replied.     "Till  we  get  tired  of  it." 

"You're  not  afraid  of  the  snow  melting  first?"  asked 
Birkin.      Gerald  laughed. 

"Does  it  melt?"   he  said. 

"Things  are  all  right  with  you  then?"   said  Birkin. 

Gerald  screwed  up  his  eyes  a  little. 

"All  right?"  he  said.  "I  never  know  what  those  common 
words  mean.  All  right  and  all  wrong,  don't  they  become 
synonymous,  somewhere?" 

"Yes,  I  suppose. — How  about  going  back?"   asked  Birkin. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  We  may  never  get  back.  I  don't 
look  before  and  after,"  said  Gerald. 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  489 

"Nor  pine  for  what  is  not,"  said  Birkin. 

Gerald  looked  into  the  distance,  with  the  small-pupilled, 
abstract  eyes  of  a  hawk. 

"No.  There's  something  final  about  this.  And  Gudrun 
seems  like  the  end,  to  me.  I  don't  know — but  she  seems  so 
soft,  her  skin  like  silk,  her  arms  heavy  and  soft.  And  it 
withers  my  consciousness,  somehow,  it  burns  the  pith  of  my 
mind."  He  went  on  a  few  paces,  staring  ahead,  his  eyes 
fixed,  looking  like  a  mask  used  in  ghastly  religions  of  the 
barbarians.  "It  blasts  your  soul's  eye,"  he  said,  "and  leaves 
you  sightless.  Yet  you  want  to  be  sightless,  you  want  to  be 
blasted,  you  don't  want  it  any  different." 

He  was  speaking  as  if  in  a  trance,  verbal  and  blank.  Then 
suddenly  he  braced  himself  up  with  a  kind  of  rhapsody,  and 
looked  at  Birkin  with  vindictive,  cowed  eyes,  saying: 

"Do  you  know  what  it  is  to  suffer  when  you  are  with  a 
woman?  She's  so  beautiful,  so  perfect,  you  find  her  so  good, 
it  tears  you  like  a  silk,  and  every  stroke  and  bit  cuts  hot — 
ha,  that  perfection,  when  you  blast  yourself,  you  blast  yourself! 
And  then — "  he  stopped  on  the  snow  and  suddenly  opened 
his  clenched  hands — "it's  nothing — your  brain  might  have 
gone  charred  as  rags — and — "  he  looked  round  into  the  air 
with  a  queer  histrionic  movement — "it's  blasting — you  under- 
stand what  I  mean — it  is  a  great  experience,  something  final — 
and  then — you're  shrivelled  as  if  struck  by  electricity."  He 
walked  on  in  silence.  It  seemed  like  bragging,  but  like  a  man 
in  extremity  bragging  truthfully. 

"Of  course,"  he  resumed,  "I  wouldn't  not  have  had  it!  It's 
a  complete  experience.  And  she's  a  wonderful  woman. 
But — how  I  hate  her  somewhere! — It's  curious — " 

Birkin  looked  at  him,  at  his  strange,  scarcely  conscious 
face.     Gerald  seemed  blank  before  his  own  words. 

"But  you've  had  enough  now?"  said  Birkin.  "You 
have  had  your  experience.      Why  work  on  an  old  wound?" 

"Oh,"  said  Gerald,  "I  don't  know.      It's  not  finished — " 

And  the  two  walked  on. 

"I've  loved  you,  as  well  as  Gudrun,  don't  forget,"  said 
Birkin  bitterly.     Gerald  looked  at  him  strangely,  abstractedly. 

"Have  you?"  he  said,  with  icy  scepticism.      "Or  do  you 


490  WOMEN    IN  LOVE 

think   you   have?"      He    was    hardly    responsible    for    what 
he  said. 

The  sledge  came.  Gudrun  dismounted  and  they  all  made 
their  farewells.  They  wanted  to  go  apart,  all  of  them. 
Birkin  took  his  place,  and  the  sledge  drove  away  leaving 
Gudrun  and  Gerald  standing  on  the  snow,  waving.  Some- 
thing froze  Birkin's  heart,  seeing  them  standing  there  in  the 
isolation  of  the  snow,  growing  smaller  and  more  isolated. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

WHEN  Gudrun  and  Birkin  were  gone,  Gudrun  felt 
herself  free  in  her  contest  with  Gerald.  As  they 
grew  more  used  to  each  other,  he  seemed  to  press 
upon  her  more  and  more.  At  first  she  could  manage  him, 
so  that  her  own  will  was  always  left  free.  But  very  soon,  he 
began  to  ignore  her  female  tactics,  he  dropped  his  respect 
for  her  whims  and  her  privacies,  he  began  to  exert  his  own  will 
blindly,  without  submitting  to  hers. 

Already  a  vital  conflict  had  set  in,  which  frightened  them 
both.  But  he  was  alone,  whilst  already  she  had  begun  to 
cast  round  for  external  resource. 

When  Ursula  had  gone,  Gudrun  felt  her  own  existence  had 
become  stark  and  elemental.  She  went  and  crouched  alone 
in  her  bedroom,  looking  out  of  the  window  at  the  big,  flashing 
stars.  In  front  was  the  faint  shadow  of  the  mountain-knot. 
That  was  the  pivot.  She  felt  strange  and  inevitable,  as  if 
she  were  centered  upon  the  pivot  of  all  existence,  there  was 
no  further  reality. 

Presently  Gerald  opened  the  door.  She  knew  he  would 
not  be  long  before  he  came.  She  was  rarely  alone,  he  pressed 
upon  her  like  a  frost,  deadening  her. 

"Are  you  alone  in  the  dark?"  he  said.  And  she  could 
tell  by  his  tone  he  resented  it,  he  resented  this  isolation  she 
had  drawn  round  herself.  Yet,  feeling  static  and  inevitable, 
she  was  kind  towards  him. 

"Would  you  like  to  light  the  candle?"   she  asked. 

He  did  not  answer,  but  came  and  stood  behind  her,  in  the 
darkness. 

"Look,"  she  said,  "at  that  lovely  star  up  there.  Do  you 
know  its  name?" 

He  crouched  beside  her,  to  look  through  the  low  window. 

"No,"  he  said.     "It  is  very  fine." 

"Isn't  it  beautiful!  Do  you  notice  how  it  darts  different 
coloured  fires — it  flashes  really  superbly — " 

491 


492  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

They  remained  in  silence.  With  a  mute,  heavy  gesture 
she  put  her  hand  on  his  knee,  and  took  his  hand. 

"Are  you  regretting  Ursula?"   he  asked. 

"No,  not  at  all,"  she  said.  Then,  in  a  slow  mood,  she 
asked: 

"How  much  do  you  love  me?" 

He  stiffened  himself  further  against  her. 

"How  much  do  you  think  I  do?"   he  asked. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  replied. 

"But  what  is  your  opinion?"   he  asked. 

There  was  a  pause.  At  length,  in  the  darkness,  came  her 
voice,  hard  and  indifferent: 

"Very  little  indeed,"  she  said  coldly,  almost  flippant. 

His  heart  went  icy  at  the  sound  of  her  voice. 

"Why  don't  I  love  you?"  he  asked,  as  if  admitting  the 
truth  of  her  accusation,  yet  hating  her  for  it. 

"I  don't  know  why  you  don't — I've  been  good  to  you. 
You  were  in  a.  fearful  state  when  you  came  to  me." 

Her  heart  was  beating  to  suffocate  her,  yet  she  was  strong 
and  unrelenting. 

"When  was  I  in  a  fearful  state?"  he  asked. 

"When  you  first  came  to  me.  I  had  to  take  pity  on  you. 
But  it  was  never  love." 

It  was  that  statement  "It  was  never  love,"  which  sounded 
in  his  ears  with  madness. 

"Why  must  you  repeat  it  so  often,  that  there  is  no  love?" 
he  said  in  a  voice  strangled  with  rage. 

"Well  you  don't  think  you  love,  do  you?"   she  asked. 

He  was  silent  with  cold  passion  of  anger. 

"You  don't  think  you  can  love  me,  do  you?"  she  repeated 
almost  with  a  sneer. 

"No,"  he  said. 

"You  know  you  never  have  loved  me,  don't  you?" 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean  by  the  word  'love,'"  he 
replied. 

"Yes,  you  do.  You  know  all  right  that  you  have  never 
loved  me.      Have  you,  do  you  think?" 

"No,"  he  said,  prompted  by  some  barren  spirit  of  truth- 
fulness and  obstinacy. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  493 

"And  you  never  will  love  me,"  she  said  finally,  "will  you?" 

There  was  a  diabolic  coldness  in  her,  too  much  to  bear. 

"No,"  he  said. 

"Then,"  she  replied,  "what  have  you  against  me!" 

He  was  silent  in  cold,  frightened  rage  and  despair.  "If 
only  I  could  kill  her,"  his  heart  was  whispering  repeatedly. 
"If  only  I  could  kill  her — I  should  be  free." 

It  seemed  to  him  that  death  was  the  only  severing  of  this 
Gordian  knot. 

"Why  do  you  torture  me?"   he  said. 

She  flung  her  arms  round  his  neck. 

"Ah,  I  don't  want  to  torture  you,"  she  said  pityingly, 
as  if  she  were  comforting  a  child.  The  impertinence  made 
his  veins  go  cold,  he  was  insensible.  She  held  her  arms  round 
his  neck,  in  a  triumph  of  pity.  And  her  pity  for  him 
was  as  cold  as  stone,  its  deepest  motive  was  hate  of  him, 
and  fear  of  his  power  over  her,  which  she  must  always  coun- 
terfoil. 

"Say  you  love  me,"  she  pleaded.  "Say  you  will  love  me 
forever — won't  you — won't  you?" 

But  it  was  her  voice  only  that  coaxed  him.  Her  senses 
were  entirely  apart  from  him,  cold  and  destructive  of  him. 
It  was  her  overbearing  will  that  insisted. 

"Won't  you  say  you'll  love  me  always?"  she  coaxed. 
"Say  it,  even  if  it  isn't  true — say  it  Gerald,  do." 

"I  will  love  you  always,"  he  repeated,  in  real  agony, 
forcing  the  words  out. 

She  gave  him  a  quick  kiss. 

"Fancy  your  actually  having  said  it,"  she  said  with  a 
touch  of  raillery. 

He  stood  as  if  he  had  been  beaten. 

"Try  to  love  me  a  little  more,  and  to  want  me  a  little  less," 
she  said,  in  a  half  contemptuous,  half  coaxing  tone. 

The  darkness  seemed  to  be  swaying  in  waves  across  his 
mind,  great  waves  of  darkness  plunging  across  his  mind. 
It  seemed  to  him  he  was  degraded  at  the  very  quick,  made 
of  no  account. 

"You  mean  you  don't  want  me?"   he  said. 

"You  are  so  insistent,  and  there  is  so  little  grace  in  you, 


494  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

so  little  fineness.  You  are  so  crude.  You  break  me — you 
only  waste  me — it  is  horrible  to  me." 

"Horrible  to  you?"   he  repeated. 

"Yes.  Don't  you  think  I  might  have  a  room  to  myself, 
now  that  Ursula  has  gone?  You  can  say  you  want  a  dressing 
room." 

"You  do  as  you  like — you  can  leave  altogether  if  you  like," 
he  managed  to  articulate. 

"Yes,  I  know  that,"  she  replied.  "So  can  you.  You 
can  leave  me  whenever  you  like — without  notice  even," 

The  great  tides  of  darkness  were  swinging  across  his  mind, 
he  could  hardly  stand  upright.  A  terrible  weariness  over- 
came him,  he  felt  he  must  lie  on  the  floor.  Dropping  off  his 
clothes,  he  got  into  bed,  and  lay  like  a  man  suddenly  over- 
come by  drunkenness,  the  darkness  lifting  and  plunging  as 
if  he  were  lying  upon  a  black,  giddy  sea.  He  lay  still  in  this 
strange,  horrific  reeling  for  some  time,  purely  unconscious. 

At  length  she  slipped  from  her  own  bed  and  came  over  to 
him.  He  remained  rigid,  his  back  to  her.  He  was  all  but 
unconscious. 

She  put  her  arms  round  his  terrifying,  rigid  body,  and 
laid  her  cheek  against  his  hard  shoulder. 

"Gerald,"  she  whispered.      "Gerald." 

There  was  no  change  in  him.  She  caught  him  against  her. 
She  pressed  her  breasts  against  his  shoulders,  she  kissed  his 
shoulder,  through  the  sleeping  jacket.  Her  mind  wondered, 
over  his  rigid,  unliving  body.  She  was  bewildered,  and  in- 
sistent, only  her  will  was  set  for  him  to  speak  to  her. 

"Gerald,  my  dear!"  she  whispered,  bending  over  him, 
kissing  his  ear. 

Her  warm  breath  playing,  flying  rhythmically  over  his 
ear,  seemed  to  relax  the  tension.  She  could  feel  his  body 
gradually  relaxing  a  little,  losing  its  terrifying,  unnatural 
rigidity.  Her  hands  clutched  his  limbs,  his  muscles,  going 
over  him  spasmodically. 

The  hot  blood  began  to  flow  again  through  his  veins,  his 
limbs  relaxed. 

"Turn  round  to  me,"  she  whispered,  forlorn  with  insist- 
ence and  triumph. 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  495 

So  at  last  he  was  given  again,  warm  and  flexible.  He 
turned  and  gathered  her  in  his  arms.  And  feeling  her  soft 
against  him,  so  perfectly  and  wondrously  soft  and  recipient, 
his  arms  tightened  on  her.  She  was  as  if  crushed,  powerless 
in  him.  His  brain  seemed  hard  and  invincible  now  like  a 
jewel,  there  was  no  resisting  him. 

His  passion  was  awful  to  her,  tense  and  ghastly,  and  im- 
personal, like  a  destruction,  ultimate.  She  felt  it  would  kill 
her.     She  was  being  killed. 

"My  God,  my  God,"  she  cried,  in  anguish,  in  his  embrace, 
feeling  her  life  being  killed  within  her.  And  when  he  was 
kissing  her,  soothing  her,  her  breath  come  slowly,  as  if  she 
were  really  spent,  dying. 

"Shall  I  die,  shall  I  die !"   she  repeated  to  herself. 

And  in  the  night,  and  in  him,  there  was  no  answer  to  the 
question. 

And  yet,  next  day,  the  fragment  of  her  which  was  not 
destroyed  remained  intact  and  hostile,  she  did  not  go  away, 
she  remained  to  finish  the  holiday,  admitting  nothing.  He 
scarcely  ever  left  her  alone,  but  followed  her  like  a  shadow, 
he  was  like  a  doom  upon  her,  a  continual  "thou  shalt," 
"thou  shalt  not."  Sometimes  it  was  he  who  seemed  strong- 
est, whilst  she  was  almost  gone,  creeping  near  the  earth  like 
a  spent  wind;  sometimes  it  was  the  reverse.  But  always 
it  was  this  eternal  see-saw,  one  destroyed  that  the  other 
might  exist,  one  ratified  because  the  other  was  nulled. 

"In  the  end,"  she  said  to  herself,  "I  shall  go  away  from 
him." 

"I  can  be  free  of  her,"  he  said  to  himself  in  his  paroxysms 
of  suffering. 

And  he  set  himself  to  be  free.  He  even  prepared  to  go 
away,  to  leave  her  in  the  lurch.  But  for  the  first  time  there 
was  a  flaw  in  his  will. 

"Where  shall  I  go!"   he  asked  himself. 

"Can't  you  be  self-sufficient?"  he  replied  to  himself, 
putting  himself  upon  his  pride. 

"Self-sufficient!"    he  repeated. 

It  seemed  to  him  that  Gudrun  was  sufficient  unto  herself, 
closed  round  and  completed,  like  a  thing  in  a  case.      In  the 


496  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

calm,  static  reason  of  his  soul,  he  recognized  this,  and  ad- 
mitted it  was  her  right,  to  be  closed  round  upon  herself,  self- 
complete,  without  desire.  He  realised  it,  he  admitted  it, 
it  only  needed  one  last  effort  on  his  own  part,  to  win  for  him- 
self the  same  completeness.  He  knew  that  it  only  needed 
one  convulsion  of  his  will  for  him  to  be  able  to  turn  upon 
himself  also,  to  close  upon  himself  as  a  stone  fixes  upon  itself, 
and  is  impervious,  self -completed,  a  thing  isolated. 

This  knowledge  threw  him  into  a  terrible  chaos.  Be- 
cause, however  much  he  might  mentally  will  to  be  immune 
and  self-complete,  the  desire  for  this  state  was  lacking,  and 
he  could  not  create  it.  He  could  see  that,  to  exist  at  all, 
he  must  be  perfectly  free  of  Gudrun,  leave  her  if  she  wanted 
to  be  left,  demand  nothing  of  her,  have  no  claim  upon  her. 

But  then,  to  have  no  claim  upon  her,  he  must  stand  by 
himself,  in  sheer  nothingness.  And  his  brain  turned  to  nought 
at  the  idea.  It  was  a  state  of  nothingness. — On  the  other  hand, 
he  might  give  in,  and  fawn  to  her. — Or,  finally,  he  might  kill 
her. — Or  he  might  become  just  indifferent,  purposeless, 
dissipated,  momentaneous. — But  his  nature  was  too  serious, 
not  gay  enough  or  subtle  enough  for  mocking  licentiousness. 

A  strange  rent  had  been  torn  in  him;  like  a  victim  that 
is  torn  open  and  given  to  the  heavens,  so  he  had  been  torn 
apart  and  given  to  Gudrun.  How  should  he  close  again? 
This  wound,  this  strange,  infinitely-sensitive  opening  of 
his  soul,  where  he  was  exposed,  like  an  open  flower,  to  all  the 
universe,  and  in  which  he  was  given  to  his  complement,  the 
other,  the  unknown,  this  wound,  this  disclosure,  this  unfolding 
of  his  own  covering,  leaving  him  incomplete,  limited,  un- 
finished, like  an  open  flower  under  the  sky,  this  was  his  crud- 
est joy.  Why  then  should  he  forego  it.  Why  should  he  close 
up  and  become  impervious,  immune,  like  a  partial  thing  in  a 
sheath,  when  he  had  broken  forth,  like  a  seed  that  has  ger- 
minated, to  issue  forth  in  being,  embracing  the  unrealised 
heavens. 

He  would  keep  the  unfinished  bliss  of  his  own  yearning 
even  through  the  torture  she  inflicted  upon  him.  A  strange 
obstinacy  possessed  him.  He  would  not  go  away  from  her 
whatever   she   said   or  did.       A   strange,    deathly   yearning 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  497 

carried  him  along  with  her.  She  was  the  determinating 
influence  of  his  very  being,  though  she  treated  him  with  con- 
tempt, repeated  rebuffs,  and  denials,  still  he  would  never  be 
gone,  since  in  being  near  her,  even,  he  felt  the  quickening, 
the  going  forth  in  him,  the  release,  the  knowledge  of  his  own 
limitation  and  the  magic  of  the  promise,  as  well  as  the  mystery 
of  his  own  destruction  and  annihilation. 

She  tortured  the  open  heart  of  him  even  as  he  turned  to 
her.  And  she  was  tortured  herself.  It  may  have  been  her  will 
was  stronger.  She  felt,  with  horror,  as  if  he  tore  at  the  bud 
of  her  heart,  tore  it  open,  like  an  irreverent  persistent  being. 
Like  a  boy  who  pulls  off  a  fly's  wings,  or  tears  open  a  bud  to 
see  what  is  in  the  flower,  he  tore  at  her  privacy,  at  her  very 
life,  he  would  destroy  her  as  an  immature  bud,  torn  open, 
is  destroyed. 

She  might  open  towards  him,  a  long  while  hence,  in  her 
dreams,  when  she  was  a  pure  spirit.  But  now  she  was  not 
to  be  violated  and  ruined.     She  closed  against  him  fiercely. 

They  climbed  together,  at  evening,  up  the  high  slope, 
to  see  the  sun  set.  In  the  finely  breathing,  keen  wind  they 
stood  and  watched  the  yellow  sun  sink  in  crimson  and  dis- 
appear. Then  in  the  east  the  peaks  and  ridges  glowed  with 
living  rose,  incandescent  like  immortal  flowers  against  a  brown- 
purple  sky,  a  miracle,  whilst  down  below  the  world  was  a 
bluish  shadow,  and  above,  like  an  annunciation,  hovered  a 
rosy  transport  in  mid  air. 

To  her  it  was  so  beautiful,  it  was  a  delirium,  she  wanted 
to  gather  the  glowing,  eternal  peaks  to  her  breast,  and  die. 
He  saw  them,  saw  they  were  beautiful.  But  there  arose  no 
clamour  in  his  breast,  only  a  bitterness  that  was  visionary  in 
itself.  He  wished  the  peaks  were  grey  and  unbeautiful,  so 
that  she  should  not  get  her  support  from  them.  Why  did 
she  betray  the  two  of  them  so  terribly,  in  embracing  the  glow 
of  the  evening?  Why  did  she  leave  him  standing  there,  with 
the  ice-wind  blowing  through  his  heart,  like  death,  to  gratify 
herself  among  the  rosy  snow-tips? 

"What  does  the  twilight  matter?"  he  said.  "Why  do 
you  grovel  before  it?   Is  it  so  important  to  you?" 

She  winced  in  violation  and  in  fury. 


498  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Go  away,"  she  cried,  "and  leave  me  to  it.  It  is  beautiful, 
beautiful,"  she  sang  in  strange,  rhapsodic  tones.  "It  is  the 
most  beautiful  thing  I  have  ever  seen  in  my  life.  Don't  try 
to  come  between  it  and  me.  Take  yourself  away,  you  are 
out  of  place — " 

He  stood  back  a  little,  and  left  her  standing  there,  statue- 
like, transported  into  the  mystic  glowing  east.  Already 
the  rose  was  fading,  large  white  stars  were  flashing  out.  He 
waited.      He  would  forego  everything  but  the  yearning. 

"That  was  the  most  perfect  thing  I  have  ever  seen,"  she 
said  in  cold,  brutal  tones,  when  at  last  she  turned  round  to 
him.  "It  amazes  me  that  you  should  want  to  destroy  it. 
If  you  can't  see  it  yourself,  why  try  to  debar  me?"  But  in 
reality,  he  had  destroyed  it  for  her,  she  was  straining  after  a 
dead  effect. 

"One  day,"  he  said,  softly,  looking  up  at  her,"  I  shall 
destroy  you,  as  you  stand  looking  at  the  sunset;  because  you 
are  such  a  liar." 

There  was  a  soft,  voluptuous  promise  to  himself  in  the 
words.      She  was  chilled  but  arrogant. 

"Ha!"   she  said.      "I  am  not  afraid  of  your  threats!" 

She  denied  herself  to  him,  she  kept  her  room  rigidly 
private  to  herself.  But  he  waited  on,  in  a  curious  patience, 
belonging  to  his  yearning  for  her. 

"In  the  end,"  he  said  to  himself  with  real  voluptuous 
promise,  "when  it  reaches  that  point,  I  shall  do  away  with 
her."  And  he  trembled  delicately  in  every  limb,  in  antici- 
pation, as  he  trembled  in  his  most  violent  accesses  of  passionate 
approach  to  her,  trembling  with  too  much  desire. 

She  had  a  curious  sort  of  allegiance  with  Loerke,  all  the 
while,  now,  something  insidious  and  traitorous.  Gerald  knew 
of  it.  But  in  the  unnatural  state  of  patience,  and  the  unwil- 
lingness to  harden  himself  against  her,  in  which  he  found 
himself,  he  took  no  notice,  although  her  soft  kindliness  to  the 
other  man,  whom  he  hated  as  a  noxious  insect,  made  him  shiver 
again  with  an  access  of  the  strange  shuddering  that  came  over 
him  repeatedly. 

He  left  her  alone  only  when  he  went  ski-ing,  a  sport  he 
loved,  and  which  she  did  not  practise.      Then  he  seemed  to 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  499 

sweep  out  of  life,  to  be  a  projectile  into  the  beyond.  And 
often,  when  he  went  away,  she  talked  to  the  little  German 
sculptor.      They  had  an  invariable  topic,  in  their  art. 

They  were  almost  of  the  same  ideas.  He  hated  Mestrovic, 
was  not  satisfied  with  the  Futurists,  he  liked  the  West  African 
wooden  figures,  the  Aztec  art,  Mexican  and  Central  American. 
He  saw  the  grotesque,  and  a  curious  sort  of  mechanical 
motion  intoxicated  him,  a  confusion  in  nature.  They  had  a 
curious  game  with  each  other,  Gudrun  and  Loerke,  of  infinite 
suggestivity,  strange  and  leering,  as  if  they  had  some  esoteric 
understanding  of  life,  that  they  alone  were  initiated  into  the 
fearful  central  secrets,  that  the  world  dared  not  know.  Their 
whole  correspondence  was  in  a  strange,  barely  comprehensible 
suggestivity,  they  kindled  themselves  at  the  subtle  lust  of 
the  Egyptians  or  the  Mexicans.  The  whole  game  was  one 
of  subtle  inter-suggestivity,  and  they  wanted  to  keep  it  on  the 
plane  of  suggestion.  From  their  verbal  and  physical 
nuances  they  got  the  highest  satisfaction  in  the  nerves,  from  a 
queer  interchange  of  half-suggested  ideas,  looks,  expressions  and 
gestures,  which  were  quite  intolerable,  though  incomprehen- 
sible, to  Gerald.  He  had  no  terms  in  which  to  think  of  their 
commerce,  his  terms  were  much  too  gross. 

The  suggestion  of  primitive  art  was  their  refuge,  and  the 
inner  mysteries  of  sensation  their  object  of  worship.  Art 
and  Life  were  to  them  the  Reality  and  the  Unreality. 

"Of  course,"  said  Gudrun,  "life  doesn't  really  mattei" — 
it  is  one's  art  which  is  central.  What  one  does  in  one's  life 
has  peu  de  rapport,  it  doesn't  signify  much." 

"Yes,  that  is  so,  exactly,"  replied  the  sculptor.  "What 
one  does  in  one's  art,  that  is  the  breath  of  one's  being.  What 
one  does  in  one's  life,  that  is  a  bagatelle  for  the  outsiders  to 
fuss  about." 

It  was  curious  what  a  sense  of  elation  and  freedom  Gud- 
run found  in  this  communication.  She  felt  established 
forever.  Of  course  Gerald  was  bagatelle.  Love  was  one  of 
the  temporal  things  in  her  life,  except  in  so  far  as  she  was  an 
artist.  She  thought  of  Cleopatra — Cleopatra  must  have 
been  an  artist;  she  reaped  the  essential  from  a  man,  she 
harvested  the  ultimate  sensation,  and  threw  away  the  husk; 


500  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

and  Mary  Stuart,  and  Eleonora  Duse,  panting  with  her  lovers 
after  the  theatre,  these  were  the  exoteric  exponents  of  love. 
After  all,  what  was  the  lover  but  fuel  for  the  transport  of  this 
subtle  knowledge,  for  a  female  art,  the  art  of  pure,  perfect 
knowledge  in  sensuous  understanding. 

One  evening  Gerald  was  arguing  with  Loerke  about  Italy 
and  Tripoli.  The  Englishman  was  in  a  strange,  inflammable 
state,  the  German  was  excited.  It  was  a  contest  of  words, 
but  it  meant  a  conflict  of  spirit  between  the  two  men.  And 
all  the  while  Gudrun  could  see  in  Gerald  an  arrogant  English 
contempt  for  a  foreigner.  Although  Gerald  was  quivering, 
his  eyes  flashing,  his  face  flushed,  in  his  argument  there  was 
a  brusqueness,  a  savage  contempt  in  his  manner,  that  made 
Gudrun's  blood  flare  up,  and  made  Loerke  keen  and  morti- 
fied. For  Gerald  came  down  like  a  sledge-hammer  with  his 
assertions,  anything  the  little  German  said  was  merely  con- 
temptible rubbish. 

At  last  Loerke  turned  to  Gudrun,  raising  his  hands  in 
helpless  irony,  a  shrug  of  ironical  dismissal,  something  appeal- 
ing and  child-like. 

"Sehen  Sie,  gnadige  Frau — "  he  began. 

"Bitte  sagen  Sie  nicht  immer,  gnadige  Frau,"  cried  Gudrun, 
her  eyes  flashing,  her  cheeks  burning.  She  looked  like  a 
vivid  Medusa.  Her  voice  was  loud  and  clamorous,  the  other 
people  in  the  room  were  startled. 

"Please  don't  call  me  Mrs.  Crich,"  she  cried  aloud. 

The  name,  in  Loerke's  mouth  particularly,  had  been  an 
intolerable  humiliation  and  constraint  upon  her,  these  many 
days. 

The  two  men  looked  at  her  in  amazement.  Gerald  went 
white  at  the  cheek-bones. 

"What  shall  I  say,  then?"  asked  Loerke,  with  soft,  mock- 
ing insinuation. 

"Sagen  Sie  nur  nicht  das,"  she  muttered,  her  cheeks  flushed 
crimson.      "Not  that,  at  least." 

She  saw,  by  the  dawning  look  on  Loerke's  face,  that  he  had 
understood.  She  was  not  Mrs.  Crich!  So-o — ,  that  explained 
a  great  deal. 

"Soil  ich  Fraulein  sagen?"  he  asked,  malevolently. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  501 

"I  am  not  married,"  she  said,  with  some  hauteur. 

Her  heart  was  fluttering  now,  beating  like  a  bewildered 
bird.  She  knew  she  had  dealt  a  cruel  wound,  and  she  could 
not  bear  it. 

Gerald  sat  erect,  perfectly  still,  his  .face  pale  and  calm, 
like  the  face  of  a  statue.  He  was  unaware  of  her,  or  of  Loerke 
or  anybody.  He  sat  perfectly  still,  in  an  unalterable  calm. 
Loerke,  meanwhile,  was  crouching  and  glancing  up  from  under 
his  ducked  head. 

Gudrun  was  tortured  for  something  to  say,  to  relieve  the 
suspense.  She  twisted  her  face  in  a  smile,  and  glanced 
knowingly,  almost  sneering,  at  Gerald. 

"Truth  is  best,"  she  said  to  him,  with  a  grimace. 

But  now  again  she  was  under  his  domination;  now, 
because  she  had  dealt  him  this  blow,  because  she  had  destroyed 
him,  and  she  did  not  know  how  he  had  taken  it.  She  watched 
him.  He  was  interesting  to  her.  She  had  lost  her  interest 
in  Loerke. 

Gerald  rose  at  length,  and  went  over  in  a  leisurely  still 
movement,  to  the  professor.  The  two  began  a  conversation 
on  Goethe. 

She  was  rather  piqued  by  the  simplicity  of  Gerald's 
demeanour  this  evening.  He  did  not  seem  angry  or  dis- 
gusted, only  he  looked  curiously  innocent  and  pure,  really 
beautiful.  Sometimes  it  came  upon  him,  this  look  of  clear 
distance,  and  it  always  fascinated  her. 

She  waited,  troubled,  throughout  the  evening.  She 
thought  he  would  avoid  her,  or  give  some  sign.  But  he  spoke 
to  her  simply  and  unemotionally,  as  he  would  to  anyone  else  in 
the  room.    A  certain  peace,  an  abstraction  possessed  his  soul. 

She  went  to  his  room,  hotly,  violently  in  love  with  him. 
He  was  so  beautiful  and  inaccessible.  He  kissed  her,  he 
was  a  lover  to  her.  And  she  had  extreme  pleasure  of  him. 
But  he  did  not  come  to,  he  remained  remote  and  candid, 
unconscious.  She  wanted  to  speak  to  him.  But  this  inno- 
cent, beautiful  state  of  unconsciousness  that  had  come  upon 
him  prevented  her.     She  felt  tormented  and  dark. 

In  the  morning,  however,  he  looked  at  her  with  a  little 
aversion,  some  horror  and  some  hatred  darkening  into  his 


502  WOMEN  IN   LOVE 

eyes.  She  withdrew  on  to  her  old  ground.  But  still  he 
would  not  gather  himself  together,  against  her. 

Loerke  was  waiting  for  her  now.  The  little  artist,  isolated 
in  his  own  complete  envelope,  felt  that  here  at  last  was  a 
woman  from  whom  he  could  get  something.  He  was  uneasy 
all  the  while,  waiting  to  talk  with  her,  subtly  contriving  to 
be  near  her.  Her  presence  filled  him  with  keenness  and  ex- 
citement, he  gravitated  cunningly  towards  her,  as  if  she  had 
some  unseen  force  of  attraction. 

He  was  not  in  the  least  doubtful  of  himself,  as  regards 
Gerald.  Gerald  was  one  of  the  outsiders.  Loerke  only  hated 
him  for  being  rich  and  proud  and  of  fine  appearance.  All 
these  things,  however,  riches,  pride  of  social  standing,  handsome 
physique,  were  externals.  When  it  came  to  the  relation  with 
a  woman  such  as  Gudrun,  he,  Loerke,  had  an  approach  and  a 
power  that  Gerald  never  dreamed  of. 

How  should  Gerald  hope  to  satisfy  a  woman  of  Gudrun's 
calibre?  Did  he  think  that  pride  or  masterful  will  or  physical 
strength  would  help  him?  Loerke  knew  a  secret  beyond  these 
things.  The  greatest  power  is  the  one  that  is  subtle  and 
adjusts  itself,  not  one  which  blindly  attacks.  And  he, 
had  understanding  where  Gerald  was  a  calf.  He,  Loerke, 
could  penetrate  into  depths  far  out  of  Gerald's  knowledge. 
Gerald  was  left  behind  like  a  postulant  in  the  ante-room 
of  this  temple  of  mysteries,  this  woman.  But  he,  Loerke, 
could  he  not  penetrate  into  the  inner  darkness,  find  the  spirit 
of  the  woman  in  its  inner  recess,  and  wrestle  with  it  there, 
the  central  serpent  that  is  coiled  at  the  core  of  life. 

What  was  it,  after  all,  that  a  woman  wanted?  Was  it 
mere  social  effect,  fulfilment  of  ambition  in  the  social  world, 
in  the  community  of  mankind?  Was  it  even  a  union  in  love 
and  goodness?  Did  she  want  "goodness"?  Who  but  a  fool 
would  accept  this  of  Gudrun?  This  was  but  the  street  view 
of  her  wants.  Cross  the  threshold,  and  you  found  her 
completely,  completely  cynical  about  the  social  world  and  its 
advantages.  Once  inside  the  house  of  her  soul,  and  there 
was  pungent  atmosphere  of  corrosion,  an  inflamed  darkness 
of  sensation,  and  a  vivid,  subtle,  critical  consciousness,  that 
saw  the  world  distorted,  horrific. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  503 

What  then,  what  next?  Was  it  sheer  blind  force  of  passion 
that  would  satisfy  her  now?  Not  this,  but  the  subtle  thrills 
of  extreme  sensation  in  reduction.  It  was  an  unbroken  will 
reacting  against  her  unbroken  will  in  a  myriad  subtle  thrills  of 
reduction,  the  last  subtle  activities  of  analysis  and  breaking 
down,  carried  out  in  the  darkness  of  her,  whilst  the  outside 
form,  the  individual,  was  utterly  unchanged,  even  senti- 
mental in  its  poses. 

But  between  two  particular  people,  any  two  people  on 
earth,  the  range  of  pure  sensational  experience  is  limited. 
The  climax  of  sensual  reaction,  once  reached  in  any  direction, 
is  reached  finally,  there  is  no  going  on.  There  is  only  repe- 
tition possible,  or  the  going  apart  of  the  two  protagonists, 
or  the  subjugating  of  the  one  will  to  the  other,  or  death. 

Gerald  had  penetrated  all  the  outer  places  of  Gudrun's 
soul.  He  was  to  her  the  most  crucial  instance  of  the  existing 
world,  the  ne  plus  uUra  of  the  world  of  man  as  it  existed  for 
her.  In  him  she  knew  the  world,  and  had  done  with  it. 
Knowing  him  finally  she  was  the  Alexander  seeking  new 
worlds. — But  there  were  no  new  worlds,  there  were  no  more 
men,  there  were  only  creatures,  little,  ultimate  creatures  like 
Loerke.  The  world  was  finished  now,  for  her.  There  was 
only  the  inner,  individual  darkness,  sensation  within  the  ego, 
the  obscene  religious  mystery  of  ultimate  reduction,  the 
mystic  frictional  activities  of  diabolic  reducing  down,  dis- 
integrating the  vital  organic  body  of  life. 

All  this  Gudrun  knew  in  her  subconsciousness,  not  in  her 
mind.  She  knew  her  next  step — she  knew  what  she  should 
move  on  to,  when  she  left  Gerald.  She  was  afraid  of  Gerald, 
that  he  might  kill  her.  But  she  did  not  intend  to  be  killed. 
A  fine  thread  still  united  her  to  him.  It  should  not  be  her 
death  which  broke  it. — She  had  further  to  go,  a  further,  slow 
exquisite  experience  to  reap,  unthinkable  subleties  of  sensa- 
tion to  know,  before  she  was  finished. 

Of  the  last  M-rirs  of  subtleties,  Gerald  was  not  capable. 
He  could  not  touch  the  quick  of  her.  But  where  his  ruder 
blows  could  not  penetrate,  the  fine,  insinuating  blade  of 
Ixxrke's  insect-like  comprehension  could.  At  least,  it  was 
time  for  her  now  to  pass  over  to  the  other,  the  creature,  the 


504  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

final  craftsman.  She  knew  that  Loerke,  in  his  innermost 
soul,  was  detached  from  everything,  for  him  there  was  neither 
heaven  nor  earth  nor  hell.  He  admitted  no  allegiance,  he 
gave  no  adherence  anywhere.  He  was  single  and,  by  ab- 
straction from  the  rest,  absolute  in  himself. 

Whereas  in  Gerald's  soul  there  still  lingered  some  attach- 
ment to  the  rest,  to  the  whole.  And  this  was  his  limitation. 
He  was  limited,  borne,  subject  to  his  necessity,  in  the  last 
issue,  for  goodness,  for  righteousness,  for  oneness  with  the 
ultimate  purpose.  That  the  ultimate  purpose  might  be  the 
perfect  and  subtle  experience  of  the  process  of  death,  the 
will  being  kept  unimpaired,  that  was  not  allowed  in  him. 
And  this  was  his  limitation. 

There  was  a  hovering  triumph  in  Loerke,  since  Gudrun 
had  denied  her  marriage  with  Gerald.  The  artist  seemed 
to  hover  like  a  creature  on  the  wing,  waiting  to  settle.  He 
did  not  approach  Gudrun  violently,  he  was  never  ill-timed. 
But  carried  on  by  a  sure  instinct  in  the  complete  darkness  of 
his  soul,  he  corresponded  mystically  with  her,  imperceptibly, 
but  palpably. 

For  two  days,  he  talked  to  her,  continued  the  discussions 
of  art,  of  life,  in  which  they  both  found  such  pleasure.  They 
praised  the  by-gone  things,  they  took  a  sentimental,  childish 
delight  in  the  achieved  perfections  of  the  past.  Particularly 
they  liked  the  late  eighteenth  century,  the  period  of  Goethe 
and  of  Shelley,  and  Mozart. 

They  played  with  the  past,  and  with  the  great  figures  of 
the  past,  a  sort  of  little  game  of  chess,  or  marionettes,  all 
to  please  themselves.  They  had  all  the  great  men  for  their 
marionettes,  and  they  two  were  the  God  of  the  show,  working 
it  all.  As  for  the  future,  that  they  never  mentioned  except 
one  laughed  out  some  mocking  dream  of  the  destruction  of 
the  world  by  a  ridiculous  catastrophe  of  man's  invention: 
a  man  invented  such  a  perfect  explosive  that  it  blew  the  earth 
in  two,  and  the  two  halves  set  off  in  different  directions  through 
space,  to  the  dismay  of  the  inhabitants:  or  else  the  people 
of  the  world  divided  into  two  halves,  and  each  half  decided 
it  was  perfect  and  right,  the  other  half  was  wrong  and  must 
be  destroyed;   so  another  end  of  the  world.      Or  else,  Loerke's 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  505 

dream  of  fear,  the  world  went  cold,  and  snow  fell  every- 
where, and  only  white  creatures,  polar-bears,  white  foxes, 
and  men  like  awful  white  snow-birds,  persisted  in  ice  cruelty. 

Apart  from  these  stories,  they  never  talked  of  the  future. 
They  delighted  most  either  in  mocking  imaginations  of 
destruction,  or  in  sentimental,  fine  marionette-shows  of  the 
past.  It  was  a  sentimental  delight  to  reconstruct  the  world 
of  Goethe  at  Weimar,  or  of  Schiller  and  poverty  and  faithful 
love,  or  to  see  again  Jean  Jacques  in  his  quakings,  or  Voltaire 
at  Ferney,  or  Frederick  the  Great  reading  his  own  poetry. 

They  talked  together  for  hours,  of  literature  and  sculpture 
and  painting,  amusing  themselves  with  Flaxman  and  Blake 
and  Fuseli,  with  tenderness,  and  about  Feuerbach  and  Bock- 
lin.  It  would  take  them  a  life-time,  they  felt  to  live  again, 
in  petto,  the  lives  of  the  great  artists.  But  they  preferred 
to  stay  in  the  eighteenth  and  the  nineteenth  centuries. 

They  talked  in  a  mixture  of  languages.  The  ground- 
work was  French,  in  either  case.  But  he  ended  most  of  his 
sentences  in  a  stumble  of  English  and  a  conclusion  of  German, 
she  skilfully  wove  herself  to  her  end  in  whatever  phrase  came 
to  her.  She  took  a  peculiar  delight  in  this  conversation.  It 
was  full  of  odd,  fantastic  expression,  of  double  meanings,  of 
evasions,  of  suggestive  vagueness.  It  was  a  real  physical 
pleasure  to  her  to  make  this  thread  of  conversation  out  of  the 
different-coloured  strands  of  three  languages. 

And  all  the  while  they  two  were  hovering,  hesitating 
round  the  flame  of  some  invisible  declaration.  He  wanted 
it,  but  was  held  back  by  some  inevitable  reluctance.  She 
wanted  it  also,  but  she  wanted  to  put  it  off,  to  put  it  off 
indefinitely,  she  still  had  some  pity  for  Gerald,  some  connec- 
tion with  him.  And  the  most  fatal  of  all,  she  had  the  remini- 
scent sentimental  compassion  for  herself  in  connection  with 
him.  Because  of  what  had  been,  she  felt  herself  held  to  him 
by  immortal,  invisible  threads — because  of  what  had  been, 
because  of  his  coming  to  her  that  first  night,  into  her  own  house, 
in  his  extremity,  because — 

Gerald  was  gradually  overcome  with  a  revulsion  of  loath- 
ing for  Loerke.  He  did  not  take  the  man  seriously,  he 
despised  him  merely,  except  as  he  felt  in  Gudrun's  veins  the 


506  WOMEN   IN  LOVE 

influence  of  the  little  creature.  It  was  this  that  drove  Gerald 
wild,  the  feeling  in  Gudrun's  veins  of  Loerke's  presence, 
Loerke's  being,  flowing  dominant  through  her. 

"What  makes  you  so  smitten  with  that  little  vermin?" 
he  asked,  really  puzzled.  For  he,  man-like,  could  not  see 
anything  attractive  or  important  at  all  in  Loerke.  Gerald 
expected  to  find  some  handsomeness  or  nobleness,  to  account 
for  a  woman's  subjection.  But  he  saw  none  here,  only  an 
insect-like  repulsiveness. 

Gudrun  flushed  deeply.  It  was  these  attacks  she  would 
never  forgive. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  replied.  "My  God,  what  a 
mercy  I  am  not  married  to  you!" 

Her  voice  of  flouting  and  contempt  scotched  him.  He 
was  brought  up  short.     But  he  recovered  himself. 

"Tell  me,  only  tell  me,"  he  reiterated  in  a  dangerous  nar- 
rowed voice — "tell  me  what  it  is  that  fascinates  you  in  him." 

"I  am  not  fascinated,"  she  said,  with  cold  repelling 
innocence. 

"Yes,  you  are.  You  are  fascinated  by  that  little  dry 
snake,  like  a  bird  gaping  ready  to  fall  down  its  throat." 

She  looked  at  him  with  black  fury. 

"I  don't  choose  to  be  discussed  by  you,"  she  said. 

"It  doesn't  matter  whether  you  choose  or  not,"  he  replied, 
"that  doesn't  alter  the  fact  that  you  are  ready  to  fall  down 
and  kiss  the  feet  of  that  little  insect.  And  I  don't  want  to 
prevent  you — do  it,  fall  down  and  kiss  his  feet.  But  I  want 
to  know,  what  it  is  that  fascinates  you — what  is  it?" 

She  was  silent,  suffused  with  black  rage. 

"How  dare  you  come  brow-beating  me,"  she  cried,  "how 
dare  you,  you  little  squire,  you  bully.  What  right  have  you 
over  me,  do  you  think?" 

His  face  was  white  and  gleaming,  she  knew  by  the  light  in 
his  eyes  that  she  was  in  his  power — the  wolf.  And  because 
she  was  in  his  power,  she  hated  him  with  a  power  that  she 
wondered  did  not  kill  him.  In  her  will  she  killed  him  as  be 
stood,  effaced  him. 

"It  is  not  a  question  of  right,"  said  Gerald,  sitting  down  on 
a  chair.     She  watched  the  change  in  his  body.     She  saw  his 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  507 

clenched,  mechanical  body  moving  there  like  an  obsession. 
Her  hatred  of  him  was  tinged  with  fatal  contempt. 

"It's  not  a  question  of  my  right  over  you — though  I  have 
some  right,  remember. — I  want  to  know,  I  only  want  to  know 
what  it  is  that  subjugates  you  to  that  little  scum  of  a  sculptor 
downstairs,  what  it  is  that  brings  you  down  like  a  humble 
maggot,  in  worship  of  him.  I  want  to  know  what  you  creep 
after." 

She  stood  over  against  the  window,  listening.  Then  she 
turned  round. 

"Do  you?"  she  said,  in  her  most  easy,  most  cutting  voice. 
"Do  you  want  to  know  what  it  ls  in  him?  It's  because  he  has 
some  understanding  of  a  woman,  because  he  is  not  stupid. 
That's  why  it  is." 

A  queer,  sinister,  animal-like  smile  came  over  Gerald's 
face. 

"But  what  understanding  is  it?"  he  said.  "The  under- 
standing of  a  flea,  a  hopping  flea  with  a  proboscis.  Why 
should  you  crawl  abject  before  the  understanding  of  a  flea?" 

There  passed  through  Gudrun's  mind  Blake's  representa- 
tion of  the  soul  of  a  flea.  She  wanted  to  fit  it  to  Loerke. 
Blake  was  a  clown  too.  But  it  was  necessary  to  answer 
Gerald. 

"Don't  you  think  the  understanding  of  a  flea  is  more 
interesting  than  the  understanding  of  a  fool?"    she  asked. 

"A  fool!"   he  repeated. 

"A  fool,  a  conceited  fool — a  Dummkopf,"  she  replied, 
adding  the  German  word. 

"Do  you  call  me  a  fool?"  he  replied.  "Well,  wouldn't 
I  rather  be  the  fool  I  am,  than  that  flea  downstairs?" 

She  looked  at  him.  A  certain  blunt,  blind  stupidity  in 
him  palled  on  her  soul,  limiting  her. 

"You  give  yourself  away  by  that  last,"  she  said. 

He  sat  and  wondered. 

"I  shall  go  away  soon,"  he  said. 

She  turned  on  him. 

"Remember,"  she  said,  "I  am  completely  independent 
of  you— completely.     You  make  your  arrangements,  I  make 


508  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

He  pondered  this. 

"You  mean  we  are  strangers  from  this  minute?"  he 
asked. 

She  halted  and  flushed.  He  was  putting  her  in  a  trap, 
forcing  her  hand.      She  turned  round  on  him. 

"Strangers,"  she  said,  "we  can  never  be.  But  if  you 
want  to  make  any  movement  apart  from  me,  then  I  wish 
you  to  know  you  are  perfectly  free  to  do  so.  Do  not  consider 
me  in  the  slightest." 

Even  so  slight  an  implication  that  she  needed  him  and  was 
depending  on  him  still  was  sufficient  to  rouse  his  passion. 
As  he  sat  a  change  came  over  his  body,  the  hot,  molten  stream 
mounted  involuntarily  through  his  veins.  He  groaned 
inwardly,  under  its  bondage,  but  he  loved  it.  He  looked  at 
her  with  clear  eyes,  waiting  for  her. 

She  knew  at  once,  and  was  shaken  with  cold  revulsion. 
How  could  he  look  at  her  with  those  clear,  warm,  waiting  eyes, 
waiting  for  her,  even  now?  What  had  been  said  between  them, 
was  it  not  enough  to  put  them  worlds  asunder,  to  freeze  them 
forever  apart!  And  yet  he  was  all  transfused  and  roused, 
waiting  for  her. 

It  confused  her.     Turning  her  head  aside,  she  said: 

"I  shall  always  tell  you,  whenever  I  am  going  to  make  any 
change — " 

And  with  this  she  moved  out  of  the  room. 

He  sat  suspended  in  a  fine  recoil  of  disappointment,  that 
seemed  gradually  to  be  destroying  his  understanding.  But 
the  unconscious  state  of  patience  persisted  in  him.  He 
remained  motionless,  without  thought  or  knowledge,  for  a 
long  time.  Then  he  rose,  and  went  downstairs,  to  play 
at  chess  with  one  of  the  students.  His  face  was  open  and 
clear,  with  a  certain  innocent  laisser-aller  that  troubled 
Gudrun  most,  made  her  almost  afraid  of  him,  whilst  she 
disliked  him  deeply  for  it. 

It  was  after  this  that  Loerke,  who  had  never  yet  spoken 
to  her  personally,  began  to  ask  her  of  her  state. 

"You  are  not  married  at  all,  are  you?"  he  asked. 

She  looked  full  at  him. 

"Not  in  the  least,"  she  replied,  in  her  measured   way. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  I  509 

Loerke  laughed,  wrinkling  up  bis  face  oddly.  There  was  a 
thin  wisp  of  his  hair  straying  on  his  forehead,  she  noticed 
that  his  skin  was  of  a  clear  brown  colour,  his  hands,  his  wrists. 
And  his  hands  seemed  closely  prehensile.  He  seemed  like 
topaz,  so  strangely  brownish  and  pellucid. 

"Good,"  he  said. 

Still  it  needed  some  courage  for  him  to  go  on. 

"Was  Mrs.  Birkin  your  sister?"  he  asked. 

"Yes." 

"And  was  she  married?" 

"She  was  married." 

"Have  you  parents,  then?" 

"Yes,"  said  Gudrun,  "we  have  parents." 

And  she  told  him,  briefly,  laconically,  her  position.  He 
watched  her  closely,  curiously  all  the  while. 

"So!"  he  exclaimed,  with  some  surprise.  "And  the  Herr 
Crich,  is  he  rich?" 

"Yes,  he  is  rich,  a  coal  owner." 

"How  long  has  your  friendship  with  him  lasted?" 

"Some  months." 

There  was  a  pause. 

"Yes,  I  am  surprised,"  he  said  at  length.  "The  English, 
I  thought  they  were  «so — cold.  And  what  do  you  think  to  do 
when  you  leave  here?" 

"What  do  I  think  to  do?"   she  repeated. 

"Yes.  You  cannot  go  back  to  the  teaching.  No — " 
he  shrugged  his  shoulders — "that  is  impossible.  Leave  that 
to  the  canaille  who  can  do  nothing  else.  You,  for  your  part — 
you  know,  you  are  a  remarkable  woman,  eine  seltsame  Frau. 
Why  deny  it — why  make  any  question  of  it?  You  are  an  ex- 
traordinary woman,  why  should  you  follow  the  ordinary 
course,  the  ordinary  life?" 

Gudrun  sat  looking  at  her  hands,  flushed.  She  was 
pleased  that  he  said,  so  simply,  that  she  was  a  remarkable 
woman.  He  would  not  say  that  to  flatter  her — he  was  far 
too  self-opinionated  and  objective  by  nature.  He  said  it 
as  he  would  say  a  piece  of  sculpture  was  remarkable,  because 
he  knew  it  waa  «o. 

And  it  gratified  her  to  hear  it  from  him.      Other  people 


510  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

had  such  a  passion  to  make  everything  of  one  degree,  of  one 
pattern.  In  England  it  was  chic  to  be  perfectly  ordinary. 
And  it  was  a  relief  to  her  to  be  acknowledged  extraordinary. 
Then  she  need  not  fret  about  the  common  standards. 

"You  see,"  she  said,  "I  have  no  money  whatsoever." 

"Ach,  money!"  he  cried,  lifting  his  shoulders.  "When 
one  is  grown  up,  money  is  lying  about  at  one's  service.  It 
is  only  when  one  is  young  that  it  is  rare.  Take  no  thought 
for  money — that  always  lies  to  hand." 

"Does  it?"   she  said,  laughing. 

"Always.  Der  Gerald  will  give  you  a  sum,  if  you  ask 
him  for  it — " 

She  flushed  deeply. 

"I  will  ask  anybody  else,"  she  said,  with  some  difficulty — 
"but  not  him." 

Loerke  looked  closely  at  her. 

"Good,"  he  said.  "Then  let  it  be  somebody  else.  Only 
don't  go  back  to  that  England,  that  school.  No,  that  is 
stupid." 

Again  there  was  a  pause.  He  was  afraid  to  ask  her  out- 
right to  go  with  him,  he  was  not  even  quite  sure  he  wanted 
her;  and  she  was  afraid  to  be  asked.  He  begrudged  his  own 
isolation,  was  very  chary  of  sharing  his  life,  even  for  a  day. 

"The  only  other  place  I  know  is  Paris,"  she  said,  "And  I 
can't  stand  that." 

She  looked  with  her  wide,  steady  eyes  full  at  Loerke. 
He  lowered  his  head  and  averted  his  face. 

"Paris,  no!"  he  said.  "Between  the  religion  d' 'amour, 
and  the  latest  'ism,  and  the  new  turning  to  Jesue,  one  had 
better  ride  on  a  carrousel  all  day.  But  come  to  Dresden. 
I  have  a  studio  there — I  can  give  you  work, — oh,  that  would 
be  easy  enough.  I  haven't  seen  any  of  your  things,  but  I 
believe  in  you.  Come  to  Dresden — that  is  a  fine  town  to 
be  in,  and  as  good  a  life  as  you  can  expect  of  a  town.  You 
have  everything  there,  without  the  foolishness  of  Paris  or  the 
beer  of  Munich." 

He  sat  and  looked  at  her,  coldly.  What  she  liked  about 
him  was  that  he  spoke  to  her  simple  and  flat,  as  to  himself. 
He  was  a  fellow  craftsman,  a  fellow  being  to  her,  first. 


WOMEN   IN  LOVE  511 

"No — Paris,"  he  resumed,  "it  makes  me  sick.  Pah — 
l'amour.  I  detest  it.  L'amour,  1'amour,  die  Liebe — I 
detest  it  in  every  language.  Women  and  love,  there  is  no 
greater  tedium,"  he  cried. 

She  was  slightly  offended.  And  yet,  this  was  her  own 
basic  feeling.      Men,  and  love — there  was  no  greater  tedium. 

"I  think  the  same,"  she  said. 

"A  bore,"  he  repeated.  "What  does  it  matter  whether 
I  wear  this  hat  or  another.  So  love.  I  needn't  wear  a  hat 
at  all,  only  for  convenience.  Neither  need  I  love  except 
for  convenience.  I  tell  you  what,  gnadige  Frau — "  and  he 
leaned  towards  her — then  he  made  a  quick,  odd  gesture,  as  of 
striking  something  aside — "gnadiges  Fraulein,  never  mind— 
I  tell  you  what,  I  would  give  everything,  everything,  all 
your  love,  for  a  little  companionship  in  intelligence — "  his 
eyes  flickered  darkly,  evilly  at  her. — "You  understand?" 
he  asked,  with  a  faint  smile.  "It  wouldn't  matter  if  she  were 
a  hundred  years  old,  a  thousand — it  would  be  all  the  same 
to  me,  so  that  she  can  understand."  He  shut  his  eyes  with  a 
little  snap. 

Again  Gudrun  was  rather  offended.  Did  he  not  think 
her  good-looking,  then?  Suddenly  she  laughed. 

"I  shall  have  to  wait  about  eighty  years  to  suit  you,  at 
that,"  she  said.      "I  am  ugly  enough,  aren't  I?" 

He  looked  at  her  with  an  artist's  sudden,  critical,  estimating 
eye. 

"You  are  beautiful,"  he  said,  "and  I  am  glad  of  it.  But 
it  isn't  that — it  isn't  that,"  he  cried,  with  emphasis  that 
flattered  her.  "It  is  that  you  have  a  certain  wit,  it  is  the 
kind  of  understanding.  For  me,  I  am  little,  chetif,  insig- 
nificant. Good !  Do  not  ask  me  to  be  strong  and  handsome, 
then.  But  it  is  the  me — "  he  put  his  fingers  to  his  mouth, 
oddly — "it  is  the  me  that  is  looking  for  a  mistress,  and  my 
me  is  waiting  for  the  thee  of  the  mistress,  for  the  match  to 
my  particular  intelligence — you  understand?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "I  understand." 

"As  for  the  other,  this  amour—"  he  made  a  gesture, 
dashing  his  hand  aside,  as  if  to  dash  away  something  trouble- 
-"it  is   unimportant,  unimportant.      Does   it    matter, 


512  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

whether  I  drink  white  wine  this  evening,  or  whether  I  drink 
nothing?  It  does  not  matter,  it  does  not  matter.  So  this  love, 
this  amour,  this  baiser.  Yes  or  no,  soit  ou  soit  pas,  to-day, 
to-morrow,  or  never,  it  is  all  the  same,  it  does  not  matter — 
no  more  than  the  white  wine." 

He  ended  with  an  odd  dropping  of  the  head  in  a  desperate 
negation.     Gudrun  watched  him  steadily.     She  had  gone  pale. 

Suddenly  she  stretched  over  and  seized  his  hand  in  her  own. 

"That  is  true,"  she  said,  in  rather  a  high,  vehement  voice, 
"that  is  true  for  me  too.  It  is  the  understanding  that 
matters." 

He  looked  up  at  her  almost  frightened,  furtive.  Then  he 
nodded,  a  little  sullenly.  She  let  go  his  hand:  he  had  made 
not  the  lightest  response.      And  they  sat  in  silence. 

"Do  you  know,"  he  said,  suddenly  looking  at  her  with 
dark,  self-important,  prophetic  eyes,  "your  fate  and  mine, 
they  will  run  together,  till — "  and  he  broke  off  in  a  little 
grimace. 

"Till  when?"  she  asked,  blenched,  her  lips  going  white. 
She  was  terribly  susceptible  to  these  evil  prognostications, 
but  he  only  shook  his  head. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said,  "I  don't  know." 

Gerald  did  not  come  in  from  his  ski-ing  until  nightfall, 
he  missed  the  coffee  and  cake  that  she  took  at  four  o'clock. 
The  snow  was  in  perfect  condition,  he  had  travelled  a  long 
way,  by  himself,  among  the  snow  ridges,  on  his  skis,  he  had 
climbed  high,  so  high  that  he  could  see  over  the  top  of  the 
pass,  five  miles  distant,  could  see  the  Marienhutte,  the  hostel 
on  the  crest  of  the  pass,  half  buried  in  snow,  and  over  into 
the  deep  valley  beyond,  to  the  dusk  of  the  pine  trees.  One 
could  go  that  way  home  but  he  shuddered  with  nausea  at 
the  thought  of  home; — one  could  travel  on  skis  down  there, 
and  come  to  the  old  imperial  road,  below  the  pass.  But 
why  come  to  any  road.  He  revolted  at  the  thought  of  finding 
himself  in  the  world  again.  He  must  stay  up  there  in  the 
snow  forever.  He  had  been  happy  by  himself,  high  up 
there  alone,  travelling  swiftly  on  skis,  taking  far  flights, 
and  skimming  past  the  dark  rocks  veined  with  brilliant  snow. 

But  he  felt  something  icy  gathering  at  his  heart.      This 


Women  in  love  sid 

strange  mood  of  patience  and  innocence  which  had  persisted 
in  him  for  some  days,  was  passing  away,  he  would  be  left 
again  a  prey  to  the  horrible  passions  and  tortures. 

So  he  came  down  reluctantly,  snow-burned,  snow- 
estranged,  to  the  house  in  the  hollow,  between  the  knuckles 
of  the  mountain  tops.  He  saw  its  lights  shining  yellow,  and 
he  held  back,  wishing  he  need  not  go  in,  to  confront  those 
people,  to  hear  the  turmoil  of  voices  and  to  feel  the  confusion 
of  other  presences.  He  was  isolated  as  if  there  were  a  vacuum 
round  his  heart,  or  a  sheath  of  pure  ice. 

The  moment  he  saw  Gudrun  something  jolted  in  his  soul. 
She  was  looking  rather  lofty  and  superb,  smiling  slowly  and 
graciously  to  the  Germans.  A  sudden  desire  leapt  in  his 
heart,  to  kill  her.  He  thought,  what  a  perfect  voluptuous 
fulfilment  it  would  be,  to  kill  her.  His  mind  was  absent 
all  the  evening,  estranged  by  the  snow  and  his  passion.  But 
he  kept  the  idea  constant  within  him,  what  a  perfect  voluptu- 
ous consummation  it  would  be  to  strangle  her,  to  strangle 
every  spark  of  life  out  of  her,  till  she  lay  completely  inert, 
soft,  relaxed  forever,  a  soft  heap  lying  dead  between  his  hands, 
utterly  dead.  Then  he  would  have  had  her  finally  and  for- 
ever;  there  would  be  such  a  perfect  voluptuous  finality. 

Gudrun  was  unaware  of  what  he  was  feeling,  he  seemed  so 
quiet  and  amiable,  as  usual.  His  amiability  even  made  her 
feel  brutal  towards  him. 

She  went  into  his  room  when  he  was  partially  undressed. 
She  did  not  notice  the  curious,  glad  gleam  of  pure  hatred, 
with  which  he  looked  at  her.  She  stood  near  the  door,  with 
her  hand  behind  her. 

"I  have  been  thinking,  Gerald,"  she  said,  with  an  insult- 
ing nonchalance,  "that  I  shall  not  go  back  to  England." 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "where  will  you  go  then?" 

But  she  ignored  his  question.  She  had  her  own  logical 
statement  to  make,  and  it  must  be  made  as  she  had  thought  it. 

"I  can't  see  the  use  of  going  back,"  she  continued.  "It 
is  over  between  me  and  you — " 

She  paused  for  him  to  speak.  But  he  said  nothing.  He 
was  only  talking  to  himself,  saying  "Over,  is  it?  I  l>elieve 
it  is  over.     But  it  isn't  finished.     Remember,  it  isn't  finished. 


514  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

We  must  put  some  sort  of  a  finish  on  it.  There  must  be  a 
conclusion,  there  must  be  finality." 

So  he  talked  to  himself,  but  aloud  he  said  nothing  whatever. 

"What  has  been,  has  been,"  she  continued.  "There  is 
nothing  that  I  regret.     I  hope  you  regret  nothing — " 

She  waited  for  him  to  speak. 

"Oh,  I  regret  nothing,"  he  said,  accommodatingly. 

"Good  then,"  she  answered,  "good  then.  Then  neither 
of  us  cherishes  any  regrets,  which  is  as  it  should  be." 

"Quite  as  it  should  be,"  he  said  aimlessly. 

She  paused  to  gather  up  her  thread  again. 

"Our  attempt  has  been  a  failure,"  she  said.  "But  we  can 
try  again,  elsewhere." 

A  little  flicker  of  rage  ran  through  his  blood.  It  was  as 
if  she  were  rousing  him,  goading  him.      Why  must  she  do  it? 

"Attempt  at  what?"   he  asked. 

"At  being  lovers,  I  suppose,"  she  said,  a  little  baffled, 
yet  so  trivial  she  made  it  all  seem. 

"Our  attempt  at  being  lovers  has  been  a  failure?"  he 
repeated  aloud. 

To  himself  he  was  saying,  "I  ought  to  kill  her  here.  There 
is  only  this  left,  for  me  to  kill  her."  A  heavy,  over-charged 
desire  to  bring  about  her  death  possessed  him.  She  was  un- 
aware. 

"Hasn't  it?"  she  asked.  "Do  you  think  it  has  been  a 
success?" 

Again  the  insult  of  the  flippant  question  ran  through  his 
blood  like  a  current  of  fire. 

"It  had  some  of  the  elements  of  success,  our  relationship," 
he  replied.     "It — might  have  come  off." 

But  he  paused  before  concluding  the  last  phrase.  Even 
as  he  began  the  sentence,  he  did  not  believe  in  what  he  was 
going  to  say.     He  knew  it  never  could  have  been  a  success. 

"No,"  she  replied.      "You  cannot  love." 

"And  you?"  he  asked. 

Her  wide,  dark-filled  eyes  were  fixed  on  him,  like  two 
moons  of  darkness. 

"I  couldn't  love  you"  she  said,  with  stark  cold  truth. 

A  blinding  flash   went  over  his  brain,   his   body  jolted; 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  515 

His  heart  had  burst  into  flame.  His  consciousness  was  gone 
into  his  wrists,  into  his  hands.  He  was  one  blind,  incon- 
tinent desire,  to  kill  her.  His  wrists  were  bursting,  there 
would  be  no  satisfaction  till  his  hands  had  closed  on  her. 

But  even  before  his  body  swerved  forward  on  her,  a  sudden, 
cunning  comprehension  was  expressed  on  her  face,  and  in  a 
flash  she  was  out  of  the  door.  She  ran  in  one  flash  to  her  room 
and  locked  herself  in.  She  was  afraid,  but  confident.  She 
knew  her  life  trembled  on  the  edge  of  an  abyss.  But  she  was 
curiously  sure  of  her  footing.  She  knew  her  cunning  could 
outwit  him. 

She  trembled,  as  she  stood  in  her  room,  with  excitement  and 
awful  exhilaration.  She  knew  she  could  outwit  him.  She 
could  depend  on  her  presence  of  mind,  and  on  her  wits.  But 
it  was  a  fight  to  the  death,  she  knew  it  now.  One  slip,  and 
she  was  lost.  She  had  a  strange,  tense,  exhilarated  sickness 
in  her  body,  as  one  who  is  in  peril  of  falling  from  a  great 
height,  but  who  does  not  look  down,  does  not  admit  the  fear. 

"I  will  go  away  the  day  after  to-morrow,"  she  said. 

She  only  did  not  want  Gerald  to  think  that  she  was  afraid 
of  him,  that  she  was  running  away  because  she  was  afraid  of 
him.  She  was  not  afraid  of  him,  fundamentally.  She  knew 
it  was  her  safeguard  to  avoid  his  physical  violence.  But 
even  physically  she  was  not  afraid  of  him.  She  wanted  to 
prove  it  to  him.  When  she  had  proved  it,  that,  whatever  he 
was,  she  was  not  afraid  of  him;  when  she  had  proved  thai, 
she  could  leave  him  forever.  But  meanwhile  the  fight  between 
them,  terrible  as  she  knew  it  to  be,  was  inconclusive.  And 
she  wanted  to  be  confident  in  herself.  However  many  terrors 
she  might  have,  she  would  be  unafraid,  uncowed  by  him. 
He  could  never  cow  her,  nor  dominate  her,  nor  have  any  right 
over  her;  this  she  would  maintain  until  she  had  proved  it. 
Once  it  was  proved,  she  was  free  of  him  forever. 

But  she  had  not  proved  it  yet,  neither  to  him  nor  to  her- 
self. And  this  was  what  still  bound  her  to  him.  She  was 
bound  to  him,  she  could  not  live  beyond  him.  She  sat  up  in 
bed,  closely  wrapped  up,  for  many  hours,  thinking  endlessly 
to  herself.  It  was  as  if  she  would  never  have  done  weaving 
the  great  provision  of  her  thoughts. 


516  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"It  isn't  as  if  he  really  loved  me,"  she  said  to  herself. 
"He  doesn't.  Every  woman  he  comes  across  he  wants  to 
make  her  in  love  with  him.  He  doesn't  even  know  that  he 
is  doing  it.  But  there  he  is,  before  every  woman  he  unfurls 
his  male  attractiveness,  displays  his  great  desirability,  he  tries 
to  make  every  woman  think  how  wonderful  it  would  be  to 
have  him  for  a  lover.  His  very  ignoring  of  the  women  is  part 
of  the  game.  He  is  never  unconscious  of  them.  He  should 
have  been  a  cockerel,  so  he  could  strut  before  fifty  females, 
all  his  subjects.  But  really,  his  Don  Juan  does  not  interest 
me.  I  could  play  Dona  Juanita  a  million  times  better  than 
he  plays  Juan.  He  bores  me,  you  know.  His  maleness  bores 
me.  Nothing  is  so  boring  as  the  phallus,  so  inherently  stupid 
and  stupidly  conceited.  Really,  the  fathomless  conceit  of 
these  men,  it  is  ridiculous — the  little  strutters. 

"They  are  all  alike.  Look  at  Birkin.  Built  out  of  the 
limitation  of  conceit  they  are,  and  nothing  else.  Really, 
nothing  but  their  ridiculous  limitation  and  intrinsic  insignifi- 
cance could  make  them  so  conceited. 

"As  for  Loerke,  there  is  a  thousand  times  more  in  him  than 
in  a  Gerald.  Gerald  is  so  limited,  there  is  a  dead  end  to  him. 
He  would  grind  on  at  the  old  mills  forever.  And  really, 
there  is  no  corn  between  the  millstones  any  more.  They 
grind  on  and  on,  when  there  is  nothing  to  grind — saying  the 
same  things,  believing  the  same  things,  acting  the  same 
things — Oh,  my  God,  it  would  wear  out  the  patience  of  a 
stone. 

"I  don't  worship  Loerke,  but  at  any  rate,  he  is  a  free 
individual.  He  is  not  stiff  with  conceit  of  his  own  maleness. 
He  is  not  grinding  dutifully  at  the  old  mills.  Oh  God,  when 
I  think  of  Gerald,  and  his  work — those  offices  at  Beldover, 
and  the  mines — it  makes  my  heart  sick.  What  have  I  to  do 
with  it — and  him  thinking  he  can  be  a  lover  to  a  woman! 
One  might  as  well  ask  it  of  a  self-satisfied  lamp-post. — These 
men  with  their  eternal  jobs — and  their  eternal  mills  of  God 
that  keep  on  grinding  at  nothing !  It  is  too  boring,  just  boring. 
However  did  I  come  to  take  him  seriously  at  all! 

"At  least  in  Dresden,  one  will  have  one's  back  to  it  all. 
And  there  will  be  amusing  things  to  do.     It  will  be  amusing 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  517 

to  go  to  these  eurythmic  displays,  and  the  German  opera, 
the  German  theatre.  It  will  be  amusing  to  take  part  in  Ger- 
man Bohemian  life.  And  Loerke  i*  an  artist,  he  is  a  free 
individual.  One  will  escape  from  so  much,  that  is  the  chief 
thing,  escape  so  much  hideous  boring  repetition  of  vulgar 
actions,  vulgar  phrases,  vulgar  postures.  I  don't  delude 
myself  that  I  shall  find  an  elixir  of  life  in  Dresden.  I  know 
I  shan't.  But  I  shall  get  away  from  people  who  have  their 
own  homes  and  their  own  children  and  their  own  acquaint- 
ances and  their  own  this  and  their  own  that.  I  shall  be 
among  people  who  dont  own  things  and  who  haven't  got  a 
home  and  a  domestic  servant  in  the  background,  who  haven't 
got  a  standing  and  a  status  and  a  degree  and  a  circle  of  friends 
of  the  same.  Oh  God,  the  wheels  within  wheels  of  people, 
it  makes  one's  head  tick  like  a  clock,  with  a  very  madness  of 
dead  mechanical  monotony  and  meaninglessness.  How  I 
hate  life,  how  I  hate  it.  How  I  hate  the  Geralds,  that  they 
can  offer  one  nothing  else. 

"Shortlands! — Heavens!  Think  of  living  there,  one  week, 
then  the  next,  and  then  the  third 

"No,  I  won't  think  of  it — it  is  too  much " 

And  she  broke  off,  really  terrified,  really  unable  to  bear 
any  more. 

The  thought  of  the  mechanical  succession  of  day  following 
day,  day  following  day,  ad  infinitum,  was  one  of  the  things 
that  made  her  heart  palpitate  with  a  real  approach  of  madness. 
The  terrible  bondage  of  this  tick-tack  of  time,  this  twitching 
of  the  hands  of  the  clock,  this  eternal  repetition  of  hours  and 
days — oh  God,  it  was  too  awful  to  contemplate.  And  there 
was  no  escape  from  it,  no  escape. 

She  almost  wished  Gerald  were  with  her  to  save  her  from 
the  terror  of  her  own  thoughts.  Oh,  how  she  suffered,  lying 
there  alone,  confronted  by  the  terrible  clock,  with  its  eternal 
tick-tack.  All  life,  all  life  resolved  itself  into  this:  tick-tack, 
tick-tack,  tick-tack;  then  the  striking  of  the  hour;  then  the 
tick-tack,  tick-tack,  and  the  twitching  of  the  clock-6ngers. 

Gerald  could  not  save  her  from  it.  He,  his  body,  his 
motion,  his  life — it  was  the  same  ticking,  the  same  twitching 
across    the    dial,    a   horrible    mechanical    twitching    forward 


518  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

over  the  face  of  the  hours.  What  were  his  kisses,  his  embraces. 
She  could  hear  their  tick-tack,  tick-tack. 

He — ha — she  laughed  to  herself,  so  frightened  that  she 
was  trying  to  laugh  it  off — ha — ha,  how  maddening  it  was, 
to  be  sure,  to  be  sure! 

Then,  with  a  fleeting  self-conscious  motion,  she  wondered 
if  she  would  be  very  much  surprised,  on  rising  in  the  morning, 
to  realise  that  her  hair  had  turned  white.  She  had  felt  it 
turning  white  so  often,  under  the  intolerable  burden  of  her 
thoughts,  and  her  sensations.  Yet  there  it  remained,  brown 
as  ever,  and  there  she  was  herself,  looking  a  picture  of  health. 

Perhaps  she  was  healthy.  Perhaps  it  was  only  her  un- 
abateable  health  that  left  her  so  exposed  to  the  truth.  If 
she  were  sickly  she  would  have  her  illusions,  imaginations. 
As  it  was,  there  was  no  escape.  She  must  always  see  and 
know  and  never  escape.  She  could  never  escape.  There 
she  was,  placed  before  the  clock-face  of  life.  And  if  she 
turned  round  as  in  a  railway  station,  to  look  at  the  book- 
stall, still  she  could  see,  with  her  very  spine,  she  could  see 
the  clock,  always  the  great  white  clock-face.  In  vain  she 
fluttered  the  leaves  of  books,  or  made  statuettes  in  clay. 
She  knew  she  was  not  really  reading.  She  was  not  really 
working.  She  was  watching  the  fingers  twitch  across  the 
eternal,  mechanical,  monotonous  clock-face  of  time.  She 
never  really  lived,  she  only  watched.  Indeed,  she  was  like 
a  little,  twelve-hour  clock,  vis-a-vis  with  the  enormous  clock 
of  eternity — there  she  was,  like  Dignity  and  Impudence,  or 
Impudence  and  Dignity. 

The  picture  pleased  her.  Didn't  her  face  really  look  like  a 
clock  dial — rather  roundish  and  often  pale,  and  impassive. 
She  would  have  got  up  to  look,  in  the  mirror,  but  the  thought 
of  the  sight  of  her  own  face,  that  was  like  a  twelve-hour  clock- 
dial,  filled  her  with  such  deep  terror,  that  she  hastened  to  think 
of  something  else. 

Oh,  why  wasn't  somebody  kind  to  her?  Why  wasn't  there 
somebody  who  would  take  her  in  their  arms,  and  hold  her 
to  their  breast,  and  give  her  rest,  pure,  deep,  healing  rest. 
Oh,  why  wasn't  there  somebody  to  take  her  in  their  arms  and 
fold  her  safe  and  perfect,  for  sleep.      She  wanted  so  much 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  519 

this  perfect  enfolded  sleep.  She  lay  always  so  unsheathed 
in  sleep.  She  would  lie  always  unsheathed  in  sleep,  unrelieved, 
unsaved.  Oh,  how  could  she  bear  it,  this  endless  unrelief, 
this  eternal  unrelief. 

Gerald !  Could  he  fold  her  in  his  arms  and  sheathe  her  in 
sleep!  Ha!  He  needed  putting  to  sleep  himself — poor  Gerald. 
That  was  all  he  needed.  What  did  he  do,  he  made  the  burden 
for  her  greater,  the  burden  of  her  sleep  was  the  more  intol- 
erable, when  he  was  there.  He  was  an  added  weariness  upon 
her  unripening  nights,  her  unfruitful  slumbers.  Perhaps  he 
got  some  repose  from  her.  Perhaps  he  did.  Perhaps  this 
was  what  he  was  always  dogging  her  for,  like  a  child  that  is 
famished,  crying  for  the  breast.  Perhaps  this  was  the  secret 
of  his  passion,  his  forever  unquenched  desire  for  her — that 
he  needed  her  to  put  him  to  sleep,  to  give  him  repose. 

What  then!  Was  she  his  mother?  Had  she  asked  for  a 
child,  whom  she  must  nurse  through  the  nights,  for  her  lover. 
She  despised  him,  she  despised  him,  she  hardened  her  heart. 
An  infant  crying  in  the  night,  this  Don  Juan. 

Ooh,  but  how  she  hated  the  infant  crying  in  the  night. 
She  would  murder  it  gladly.  She  would  stifle  it  and  bury 
it,  as  Hetty  Sorrell  did.  No  doubt  Hetty  Sorrell's  infant 
cried  in  the  night — no  doubt  Arthur  Donnithorne's  infant 
would.  Ha — the  Arthur  Donnithornes,  the  Geralds  of  this 
world.  So  manly  by  day,  yet  all  the  while,  such  a  crying 
of  infants  in  the  night.  Let  them  turn  into  mechanisms, 
let  them.  Let  them  become  instruments,  pure  machines, 
pure  wills,  that  work  like  clock-work,  in  perpetual  repetition. 
Lei  then  be  this,  let  them  be  taken  up  entirely  in  their  work, 
let  them  be  perfect  parts  of  a  great  machine,  having  a  slumber 
of  constant  repetition.  Let  Gerald  manage  his  firm.  There 
he  would  be  satisfied,  as  satisfied  as  a  wheel-barrow  that  goes 
backwards  and  forwards  along  a  plank  all  day — she  had  seen  it. 

The  wheel-barrow— the  one  humble  wheel— the  unit  of  the 
firm.  Then  the  cart,  with  two  wheels;  then  the  truck. 
with  four;  then  the  donkey-engine,  with  eight;  then  the 
winding-engine,  with  .sixteen,  and  so  on,  till  it  came  to  the 
miner,  with  a  thousand  wheels,  and  then  the  electrician, 
with    three   thousand,   and    the  underground    manager,    with 


6i0  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

twenty-thousand,  and  the  general  manager  with  a  hundred 
thousand  little  wheels  working  away  to  complete  his  make- 
up, and  then  Gerald,  with  a  million  wheels  and  cogs  and  axles. 

Poor  Gerald,  such  a  lot  of  little  wheels  to  his  make-up! 
He  was  more  intricate  than  a  chronometer- watch.  But 
oh  heavens,  what  weariness!  What  weariness,  God  above! 
A  chronometer-watch — a  beetle — her  soul  fainted  with  utter 
ennui,  from  the  thought.  So  many  wheels  to  count  and 
consider  and  calculate!  Enough,  enough — there  was  an  end 
to  man's  capacity  for  complications,  even.  Or  perhaps  there 
was  no  end. 

Meanwhile  Gerald  sat  in  his  room,  reading.  When  Gud- 
run  was  gone,  he  was  left  stupefied  with  arrested  desire.  He 
sat  on  the  side  of  the  bed  for  an  hour,  stupefied,  little  strands 
of  consciousness  appearing  and  reappearing.  But  he  did  not 
move,  for  a  long  time  he  remained  inert,  his  head  dropped  on 
his  breast. 

Then  he  looked  up  and  realised  that  he  was  going  to  bed. 
He  was  cold.     Soon  he  was  lying  down  in  the  dark. 

But  what  he  could  not  bear  was  the  darkness.  The  solid 
darkness  confronting  him  drove  him  mad.  So  he  rose,  and 
made  a  light.  He  remained  seated  for  a  while,  staring  in  front. 
He  did  not  think  of  Gudrun,  he  did  not  think  of  anything. 

Then  suddenly  he  went  downstairs  for  a  book.  He  had 
all  his  life  been  in  terror  of  the  nights  that  should  come,  when 
he  could  not  sleep.  He  knew  that  this  would  be  too  much 
for  him,  to  have  to  face  nights  of  sleeplessness  and  of  horrified 
watching  the  hours. 

So  he  sat  for  hours  in  bed,  like  a  statue,  reading.  His 
mind,  hard  and  acute,  read  on  rapidly,  his  body  understood 
nothing.  In  a  state  of  rigid  unconsciousness,  he  read  on 
through  the  night,  till  morning,  when,  weary  and  disgusted 
in  spirit,  disgusted  most  of  all  with  himself,  he  slept  for  two 
hours. 

Then  he  got  up,  hard  and  full  of  energy.  Gudrun 
scarcely  spoke  to  him,  except  at  coffee  when  she  said : 

"I  shall  be  leaving  to-morrow." 

"We  will  go  together  as  far  as  Innsbruck,  for  appearance's 
sake?"    he  asked. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  521 

"Perhaps,"  she  said. 

She  said  "Perhaps"  between  the  sips  of  her  coffee.  And 
the  sound  of  her  taking  her  breath  in  the  word,  was  nauseous 
to  him.     He  rose  quickly  to  be  away  from  her. 

He  went  and  made  arrangements  for  the  departure  on  the 
morrow.  Then,  taking  some  food,  he  set  out  for  the  day 
on  the  skis.  Perhaps,  he  said  to  the  Wirt,  he  would  go  up 
to  the  Marienhutte,  perhaps  to  the  village  below. 

To  Gudrun  this  day  was  full  of  a  promise  like  spring. 
She  felt  an  approaching  release,  a  new  fountain  of  life  rising 
up  in  her.  It  gave  her  pleasure  to  dawdle  through  her  packing, 
it  gave  her  pleasure  to  dip  into  books,  to  try  on  her  different 
garments,  to  look  at  herself  in  the  glass.  She  felt  a  new 
lease  of  life  was  come  upon  her,  and  she  was  happy  like  a  child, 
very  attractive  and  beautiful  to  everybody,  with  her  soft, 
luxuriant  figure,  and  her  happiness.  Yet  underneath  was 
death  itself. 

In  the  afternoon  she  had  to  go  out  with  Loerke.  Her 
to-morrow  was  perfectly  vague  before  her.  This  was  what 
gave  her  pleasure.  She  might  be  going  to  England  with 
Gerald,  she  might  be  going  to  Dresden  with  Loerke,  she  might 
be  going  to  Munich,  to  a  girl-friend  she  had  there.  Anything 
might  come  to  pass  on  the  morrow.  And  to-day  was  the  white, 
snowy  iridescent  threshold  of  all  possibility.  All  possibility 
— that  was  the  charm  to  her,  the  lovely,  iridescent,  indefinite 
charm, — pure  illusion.  All  possibility — because  death  was 
inevitable,  and  nothing  was  possible  but  death. 

She  did  not  want  things  to  materialise,  to  take  any  definite 
shape.  She  wanted,  suddenly,  at  one  moment  of  the  journey 
to-morrow,  to  be  wafted  into  an  utterly  new  course,  by  some 
utterly  unforeseen  event,  or  motion.  So  that,  although  she 
wanted  to  go  out  with  Loerke  for  the  last  time  into  the  snow, 
she  did  not  want  to  be  serious  or  business  I ik.-. 

And  Loerke  was  not  a  serious  figure.  In  his  brown  velvet 
cap,  that  made  his  head  as  round  as  a  chestnut,  with  the 
brown-velvet  flaps  loose  and  wild  over  his  ears,  and  a  wisp 
of  elf-like,  thin  black  hair  blowing  alwve  his  full,  elf-tike 
dark  eyes,  the  shiny,  transparent  brown  skin  crinkling  up 
into  odd  grimaces  on  his  small-featured  face,  he  looked  an 


522  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

odd  little  boy-man,  a  bat.  But  in  his  figure,  in  the  greeny 
loden  suit,  he  looked  cftftif  and  puny  still  strangely  different 
from  the  rest. 

He  had  taken  a  little  toboggan,  for  the  two  of  them,  and 
they  trudged  between  the  blinding  slopes  of  snow,  that  burned 
their  now  hardening  faces,  laughing  in  an  endless  sequence 
of  quips  and  jests  and  polyglot  fancies.  The  fancies  were 
the  reality  to  both  of  them,  they  were  both  so  happy,  tossing 
about  the  little  coloured  balls  of  verbal  humour  and  whimsi- 
cality. Their  natures  seemed  to  sparkle  in  full  interplay, 
they  were  enjoying  a  pure  game.  And  they  wanted  to  keep 
it  on  the  level  of  a  game,  their  relationship :   such  a  fine  game. 

Loerke  did  not  take  the  toboganning  very  seriously. 
He  put  no  fire  and  intensity  into  it.  as  Gerald  did.  Which 
pleased  Gudrun.  She  was  weary,  oh  so  weary  of  Gerald's 
gripped  intensity  of  physical  motion.  Loerke  let  the  sledge 
go  wildly,  and  gaily,  like  a  flying  leaf,  and  when,  at  a  bend, 
he  pitched  both  her  and  him  out  into  the  snow,  he  only 
waited  for  them  both  to  pick  themselves  up  unhurt  off  the 
keen  white  ground,  to  be  laughing  and  pert  as  a  pixie.  She 
knew  he  would  be  making  ironical,  playful  remarks  as  he 
wandered  in  hell — if  he  were  in  the  humour.  And  that 
pleased  her  immensely.  It  seemed  like  a  rising  above  the 
dreariness  of  actuality,  the  monotony  of  contingencies. 

They  played  till  the  sun  went  down,  in  pure  amusement, 
careless  and  timeless.  Then,  as  the  little  sledge  twirled 
riskily  to  rest  at  the  bottom  of  the  slope: 

"Wait!"  he  said  suddenly,  and  he  produced  from  some- 
where a  large  thermos  flask,  a  packet  of  Keks,  and  a  bottle 
of  Schnapps. 

"Oh  Loerke,"  she  cried.  "What  an  inspiration!  What  a 
comble  de  joie  indeed!   What  is  the  Schnapps?" 

He  looked  at  it,  and  laughed. 

"Heidelbeer!"   he  said. 

"No!  From  the  bilberries  under  the  snow.  Doesn't  it 
look  as  if  it  were  distilled  from  snow.  Can  you — "  she  sniffed, 
and  sniffed  at  the  bottle — "Can  you  smell  bilberries?  Isn't 
it  wonderful!  It  is  exactly  as  if  one  could  smell  them  through 
the  snow." 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  523 

She  stamped  her  foot  lightly  on  the  ground.  He  kneeled 
down  and  whistled,  and  put  his  ear  to  the  snow.  As  he  did 
so  his  black  eyes  twinkled  up. 

"Ha!  Ha!"  she  laughed,  warmed  by  the  whimsical  way  in 
which  he  mocked  at  her  verbal  extravagances.  He  was 
always  teasing  her,  mocking  her  ways.  But  as  he  in  his 
mockery  was  even  more  absurd  than  she  in  her  extrava- 
gances, what  could  one  do  but  laugh  and  feel  liberated. 

She  could  feel  their  voices,  hers  and  his,  ringing  silvery  like 
bells  in  the  frozen,  motionless  air  of  the  first  twilight.  How 
perfect  it  was,  how  very  perfect  it  was,  this  silvery  isolation 
and  interplay. 

She  sipped  the  hot  coffee,  whose  fragrance  flew  around 
them  like  bees  murmuring  around  flowers,  in  the  snowy  air, 
she  drank  tiny  sips  of  the  Heidelbeerwasser,  she  ate  the  cold, 
sweet,  creamy  wafers.  How  good  everything  was!  How 
perfect  everything  tasted  and  smelled  and  sounded,  here  in 
this  utter  stillness  of  snow  and  falling  twilight. 

"You  are  going  away  to-morrow?"   his  voice  came  at  last. 

"Yes." 

There  was  a  pause,  when  the  evening  seemed  to  rise  in  its 
silent,  ringing  pallor  infinitely  high,  to  the  infinite  which  was 
near  at  hand. 

"Wohinf" 

That  was  the  question— wohinf  Whither?  Wohinf  What 
a  lovely  word!  She  never  wanted  it  answered.  Let  it  chime 
forever. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said,  smiling  at  him. 

He  caught  the  smile  from  her. 

"One  never  does,"  he  said. 

"One  never  does,"  she  repeated. 

There  was  a  silence,  wherein  he  ate  biscuits  rapidly,  as  a 
rabbit  eats  leaves. 

"But,"  he  laughed,  "where  will  you  take  a  ticket  to?" 

"Oh  heaven!"  she  cried.     "One  must  take  a  ticket." 

Here  was  a  blow.  She  saw  herself  at  the  wicket,  at  the 
railway  station.  Then  a  relieving  thought  came  to  her. 
She  breathed  freely. 

"But  one  needn't  go,"  she  cried. 


524  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

"Certainly  not,"  he  said. 

"I  mean  one  needn't  go  where  one's  ticket  says." 

That  struck  him.  One  might  take  a  ticket,  so  as  not  to 
travel  to  the  destination  it  indicated.  One  might  break  off, 
and  avoid  the  destination.  A  point  located.  That  was  an 
idea! 

"Then  take  a  ticket  to  London,"  he  said.  "One  should 
never  go  there." 

"Right,"  she  answered. 

He  poured  a  little  coffee  into  a  tin  can. 

"You  won't  tell  me  where  you  will  go?"   he  asked. 

"Really  and  truly,"  she  said,  "I  don't  know.  It  depends 
which  way  the  wind  blows." 

He  looked  at  her  quizzically,  then  he  pursed  up  his  lips, 
like  Zephyrus,  blowing  across  the  snow. 

"It  goes  towards  Germany,"  he  said. 

"I  believe  so,"  she  laughed. 

Suddenly,  they  were  aware  of  a  vague  white  figure  near 
them.  It  was  Gerald.  Gudrun's  heart  leapt  in  sudden 
terror,  profound  terror.      She  rose  to  her  feet. 

"They  told  me  where  you  were,"  came  Gerald's  voice,  like 
a  judgment  in  the  whitish  air  of  twilight. 

"Maria!   You  come  like  a  ghost,"  exclaimed  Loerke. 

Gerald  did  not  answer.  His  presence  was  unnatural  and 
ghostly  to  them. 

Loerke  shook  the  flask — then  he  held  it  inverted  over  the 
snow.      Only  a  few  drops  trickled  out. 

"All  gone!"   he  said. 

To  Gerald,  the  smallish,  odd  figure  of  the  German  was 
distinct  and  objective,  as  if  seen  through  field  glasses.  And 
he  disliked  the  small  figure  exceedingly,  he  wanted  it  removed. 

Then  Loerke  rattled  the  box  which  held  the  biscuits. 

"Biscuits  there  are  still,"  he  said. 

And  reaching  from  his  seated  posture  in  the  sledge,  he 
handed  them  to  Gudrun.  She  fumbled,  and  took  one.  He 
would  have  held  them  to  Gerald,  but  Gerald  so  definitely 
did  not  want  to  be  offered  a  biscuit,  that  Loerke,  rather 
vaguely,  put  the  box  aside.  Then  he  took  up  the  small  bottle, 
and  held  it  to  the  light. 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  525 

"Also  there  is  some  Schnapps,"  he  said  to  himself. 

Then  suddenly,  he  elevated  the  bottle  gallantly  in  the  air, 
a  strange,  grotesque  figure  leaning  towards  Gudrun,  and  said: 

"Gnadiges  Fraulein,"  he  said,  "wohl — " 

There  was  a  crack,  the  bottle  was  flying,  Loerke  had  started 
back,  the  three  stood  quivering  in  violent  emotion. 

Loerke  turned  to  Gerald,  a  devilish  leer  on  his  bright- 
skinned  face. 

"Well  done!"  he  said,  in  a  satirical  demoniac  frenzy. 
"C'est  le  sport,  sans  doute." 

The  next  instant  he  was  sitting  ludicrously  in  the  snow, 
Gerald's  fist  having  rung  against  the  side  of  his  head.  But 
Loerke  pulled  himself  together,  rose,  quivering,  looking  full 
at  Gerald,  his  body  weak  and  furtive,  but  his  eyes  demoniacal 
with  satire. 

"Vive  le  heros,  vive — " 

But  he  flinched,  as  in  a  black  flash  Gerald's  fist  came  upon 
him,  banged  into  the  other  side  of  his  head,  and  sent  him 
aside  like  a  broken  straw. 

But  Gudrun  moved  forward.  She  raised  her  clenched 
hand  high,  and  brought  it  down,  with  a  great  downward 
stroke  on  to  the  face  and  on  to  the  breast  of  Gerald. 

A  great  astonishment  burst  upon  him,  as  if  the  air  had 
broken.  Wide,  wide  his  soul  opened,  in  wonder,  feeling  the 
pain.  Then  it  laughed,  turning,  with  strong  hands  out- 
stretched, at  last  to  take  the  apple  of  his  desire.  At  last  he 
could  finish  his  desire. 

He  took  the  throat  of  Gudrun  between  his  hands,  that  were 
hard  and  indomitably  powerful.  And  her  throat  was 
beautifully,  so  beautifully  soft,  save  that,  within,  he  could 
feel  the  slippery  chords  of  her  life.  And  this  he  crushed, 
this  he  could  crush.  What  bliss!  Oh  what  bliss,  at  last, 
what  satisfaction,  at  last!  The  pure  zest  of  satisfaction  filled 
his  soul.  He  was  watching  the  unconsciousness  come  into 
her  swollen  face,  watching  the  eyes  roll  back.  How  ugly 
she  was!  What  a  fulfilment,  what  a  satisfaction!  How  good 
this  waa,  oh  how  good  it  was,  what  a  God-given  gratification, 
at  last!  He  was  unconscious  of  her  fighting  and  struggling. 
The  struggling  was  her  reciprocal  lustful  passion  in  this  em- 


526  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

brace,  the  more  violent  it  became,  the  greater  the  frenzy  of 
delight,  till  the  zenith  was  reached,  the  crisis,  the  struggle 
was  overborne,  her  movement  became  softer,  appeased. 

Loerke  roused  himself  on  the  snow,  too  dazed  and  hurt 
to  get  up.      Only  his  eyes  were  conscious. 

"Monsieur!"  he  said,  in  his  thin,  roused  voice:  "Quand 
vous  aurez  fini — " 

A  revulsion  of  contempt  and  disgust  came  over  Gerald's 
soul.  The  disgust  went  to  the  very  bottom  of  him,  a  nausea. 
Ah,  what  was  he  doing,  to  what  depths  was  he  letting  himself 
go!  As  if  he  cared  about  her  enough  to  kill  her,  to  have  her 
life  on  his  hands! 

A  wet  kness  ran  over  his  body,  a  terrible  relaxing,  a  thaw, 
a  decay  of  strength.  Without  knowing,  he  had  let  go  his 
grip,  and  Gudrun  had  fallen  to  her  knees.  Must  he  see,  must 
he  know? 

A  fearfid  weakness  possessed  him,  his  joints  were  turned 
to  water.  He  drifted,  as  on  a  wind,  veered,  and  went  drifting 
away. 

"I  didn't  want  it,  really,"  was  the  last  confession  of  dis- 
gust in  his  soul,  as  he  drifted  up  the  slope,  weak,  finished, 
only  sheering  off  unconsciously  from  any  further  contact. 
"I've  had  enough — I  want  to  go  to  sleep.  I've  had  enough." 
He  was  sunk  under  a  sense  of  nausea. 

He  was  weak,  but  he  did  not  want  to  rest,  he  wanted  to  go 
on  and  on,  to  the  end.  Never  again  to  stay,  till  he  came  to 
the  end,  that  was  all  the  desire  that  remained  to  him.  So 
he  drifted  on  and  on,  unconscious  and  weak,  not  thinking  of 
anything,  so  long  as  he  could  keep  in  action. 

The  twilight  spread  a  weird,  unearthly  light  overhead, 
bluish-rose  in  colour,  the  cold  blue  night  sank  on  the  snow. 
In  the  valley  below,  behind,  in  the  great  bed  of  snow,  were  two 
small  figures :  Gudrun  dropped  on  her  knees,  like  one  executed, 
and  Loerke  sitting  propped  up  near  her.      That  was  all. 

Gerald  stumbled  on  up  the  slope  of  snow,  in  the  bluish 
darkness,  always  climbing,  always  unconsciously  climbing, 
weary  though  he  was.  On  his  left  was  a  steep  slope  with 
black  rocks  and  fallen  masses  of  rock  and  veins  of  snow 
slashing  in  and  about  the  blackness  of  rock,  veins  of  snow 


WOMEN  IN  LOVE  527 

slashing  vaguely  in  and  about  the  blackness  of  rock.     Yet  there 
was  no  sound,  all  this  made  no  noise. 

To  add  to  his  difficulty,  a  small  bright  moon  shone  bril- 
liantly just  ahead,  on  the  right,  a  painful  brilliant  thing  that 
was  always  there,  unremitting,  from  which  there  was  no  es- 
cape. He  wanted  so  to  come  to  the  end — he  had  had  enough. 
Yet  he  did  not  sleep. 

He  surged  painfully  up,  sometimes  having  to  cross  a  slope 
of  black  rock,  that  was  blown  bare  of  snow.  Here  he  was 
afraid  of  falling,  very  much  afraid  of  falling.  And  high  up 
here,  on  the  crest,  moved  a  wind  that  almost  overpowered 
him  with  a  sleep-heavy  iciness.  Only  it  was  not  here,  the  end, 
and  he  must  still  go  on.  His  indefinite  nausea  would  not  let 
him  stay. 

Having  gained  one  ridge,  he  saw  the  vague  shadow  of 
something  higher  in  front.  Always  higher,  always  higher. 
He  knew  he  was  going  the  track  towards  the  summit  of  the 
slopes,  where  was  the  Marienhutte,  and  the  descent  on  the 
other  side.  But  he  was  not  really  conscious.  He  only  wanted 
to  go  on,  to  go  on  whilst  he  could,  to  move,  to  keep  going, 
that  was  all,  to  keep  going,  until  it  was  finished.  He  had  lost 
all  his  sense  of  place.  And  yet  in  the  remaining  instinct  of 
life,  his  feet  sought  the  track  where  the  skis  had  gone. 

He  slithered  down  a  sheer  snow  slope.  That  frightened 
him.  He  had  no  alpenstock,  nothing.  But  having  come 
safely  to  rest,  he  began  to  walk  on,  in  the  illuminated  darkness. 
It  was  as  cold  as  sleep.  He  was  between  two  ridges,  in  a 
hollow.  So  he  swerved.  Should  he  climb  the  other  ridge, 
or  wander  along  the  hollow?  How  frail  the  thread  of  his  being 
was  stretched !  He  would  perhaps  climb  the  ridge.  The  snow 
was  firm  and  simple.  He  went  along.  There  was  something 
standing  out  of  the  snow.  He  approached,  with  dimmest 
curiosity. 

It  was  a  half-buried  Crucifix,  a  little  Christ  under  a  little 
sloping  hood,  at  the  top  of  a  pole.  He  sheered  away.  Some- 
body was  going  to  murder  him.  He  had  a  great  dread  of  l>eing 
murdered.  But  it  was  a  dread  which  stood  outside  him,  like 
his  own  ghost. 

Yet  why  be  afraid?    It  was  Ixmnd   to  hapjM'n.      To  be 


528  WOMEN  IN  LOVE 

murdered !  He  looked  round  in  terror  at  the  snow,  the  rocking, 
pale,  shadowy  slopes  of  the  upper  world.  He  was  bound  to 
be  murdered,  he  could  see  it.  This  was  the  moment  when 
the  death  was  uplifted,  and  there  was  no  escape. 

Lord  Jesus,  was  it  then  bound  to  be — Lord  Jesus!  He 
could  feel  the  blow  descending,  he  knew  he  was  murdered. 
Vaguely  wandering  forward,  his  hands  lifted  as  if  to  feel  what 
would  happen,  he  was  waiting  for  the  moment  when  he  would 
stop,  when  it  would  cease.     It  was  not  over  yet. 

He  had  come  to  the  hollow  basin  of  snow,  surrounded  by 
sheer  slopes  and  precipices,  out  of  which  rose  a  track  that 
brought  one  to  the  top  of  the  mount.  But  he  wandered 
unconsciously,  till  he  slipped  and  fell  down,  and  as  he  fell 
something  broke  in  his  soul,  and  immediately  he  went  to  sleep. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

WHEN  they  brought  the  body  home,  the  next  morning, 
Gudrun  was  shut  up  in  her  room.  From  her  window 
she  saw  men  coming  along  with  a  burden,  over  the 
snow.     She  sat  still  and  let  the  minutes  go  by. 

There  came  a  tap  at  her  door.  She  opened.  There  stood 
a  woman,  saying  softly,  oh,  far  too  reverently: 

"They  have  found  him,  madam!" 

"II  est  mort?" 

"Yes — hours  ago." 

Gudrun  did  not  know  what  to  say.  What  should  she 
say?  What  should  she  feel?  What  should  she  do?  What  did 
they  expect  of  her?  She  was  coldly  at  a  loss. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said,  and  she  shut  the  door  of  her  room. 
The  woman  went  away  mortified.  Not  a  word,  not  a  tear — 
ha!   Gudrun  was  cold,  a  cold  woman. 

Gudrun  sat  on  in  her  room,  her  face  pale  and  impassive. 
What  was  she  to  do?  She  could  not  weep  and  make  a  scene. 
She  could  not  alter  herself.  She  sat  motionless,  hiding  from 
people.  Her  one  motive  was  to  avoid  actual  contact  with 
events.  She  only  wrote  out  a  long  telegram  to  Ursula  and 
Birkin. 

In  the  afternoon,  however,  she  rose  suddenly  to  look  for 
Loerke.  She  glanced  with  apprehension  at  the  door  of  the 
room  that  had  been  Gerald's.  Not  for  worlds  would  she 
enter  there. 

She  found  Loerke  sitting  alone  in  the  lounge.  She  went 
straight  up  to  him. 

"It  isn't  true,  is  it?"   she  said. 

He  looked  up  at  her.  A  small  smile  of  misery  twisted  his 
face.     He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"True?"   he  echoed. 

"We  haven't  killed  him?"  she  asked. 

He  disliked  her  coming  to  him  in  such  a  manner.  He 
raised  his  shoulders  wearily. 

520 


530  WOMEN  IN   LOVE 

"It  has  happened,"  he  said. 

She  looked  at  him.  He  sat  crushed  and  frustrated  for  the 
time  being,  quite  as  emotionless  and  barren  as  herself.  My 
God!   this  was  a  barren  tragedy,  barren,  barren. 

She  returned  to  her  room  to  wait  for  Ursula  and  Birkin. 
She  wanted  to  get  away,  only  to  get  away.  She  could  not 
think  or  feel  until  she  had  got  away,  till  she  was  loosed  from 
this  position. 

The  day  passed,  the  next  day  came.  She  heard  the  sledge, 
saw  Ursula  and  Birkin  alight,  and  she  shrank  from  these  also. 

Ursula  came  straight  up  to  her. 

"Gudrun!"  she  cried,  the  tears  running  down  her  cheeks. 
And  she  took  her  sister  in  her  arms.  Gudrun  hid  her  face  on 
Ursula's  shoulder,  but  still  she  could  not  escape  the  cold 
devil  of  irony  that  froze  her  soul. 

"Ha,  ha!"  she  thought,  "this  is  the  right  behaviour." 

But  she  could  not  weep,  and  the  sight  of  her  cold,  pale, 
impassive  face  soon  stopped  the  fountain  of  Ursula's  tears. 
In  a  few  moments,  the  sisters  had  nothing  to  say  to  each  other. 

"Was  it  very  vile  to  be  dragged  back  here  again?"  Gud- 
run asked  at  length. 

Ursula  looked  up  in  some  bewilderment. 

"I  never  thought  of  it,"  she  said. 

"I  felt  a  beast,  fetching  you,"  said  Gudrun.  "But  I 
simply  couldn't  see  people.     That  is  too  much  for  me." 

"Yes,"  said  Ursula,  chilled. 

Birkin  tapped  and  entered.  His  face  was  white  and 
expressionless.  She  knew  he  knew.  He  gave  her  his  hand, 
saying: 

"The  end  of  this  trip,  at  any  rate." 

Gudrun  glanced  at  him,  afraid. 

There  was  silence  between  the  three  of  them,  nothing  to 
be  said.     At  length  Ursula  asked  in  a  small  voice: 

"Have  you  seen  him?" 

He  looked  back  at  Ursula  with  a  hard,  cold  look,  and  did 
not  trouble  to  answer. 

"Have  you  seen  him?"   she  repeated. 

"I  have,"  he  said,  coldly. 

Then  he  looked  at  Gudrun. 


WOMEN  IN   LOVE  531 

"Have  you  done  anything?"   he  said. 

"Nothing,"  she  replied,  "nothing." 

She  shrank  in  cold  disgust  from  making  any  statement. 

"Loerke  says  that  Gerald  came  to  you,  when  you  were 
sitting  on  the  sledge  at  the  bottom  of  the  Rudelbahn,  that 
you  had  words,  and  Gerald  walked  away.  What  were  the 
words  about?  I  had  better  know,  so  that  I  can  satisfy  the 
authorities,  if  necessary." 

Gudrun  looked  up  at  him,  white,  childlike,  mute  with 
trouble. 

"There  weren't  even  any  words,"  she  said.  "He  knocked 
Loerke  down  and  stunned  him,  he  half  strangled  me,  then  he 
went  away." 

To  herself  she  was  saying: 

"A  pretty  little  sample  of  the  eternal  triangle!"  And 
she  turned  ironically  away,  because  she  knew  that  the  fight 
had  been  between  Gerald  and  herself  and  that  the  presence 
of  the  third  party  was  a  mere  contingency — an  inevitable 
contingency  perhaps,  but  a  contingency  none  the  less.  But 
let  them  have  it  as  an  example  of  the  eternal  triangle,  the 
trinity  of  hate.     It  would  be  simpler  for  them. 

Birkin  went  away,  his  manner  cold  and  abstracted.  But 
she  knew  he  would  do  things  for  her,  nevertheless,  he  would 
see  her  through.  She  smiled  slightly  to  herself,  with  con- 
tempt. Let  him  do  the  work,  since  he  was  so  extremely 
good  at  looking  after  other  people. 

Birkin  went  again  to  Gerald.  He  had  loved  him.  And 
yet  he  felt  chiefly  disgust  at  the  inert  body  lying  there.  It 
was  so  inert,  so  coldly  dead,  a  carcase,  Birkin's  bowels  seemed 
to  turn  to  ice.  He  had  to  stand  and  look  at  the  frozen  dead 
body  that  had  been  Gerald. 

It  was  the  frozen  carcase  of  a  dead  male.  Birkin  remem- 
bered a  rabbit  which  he  had  once  found  frozen  like  a  board 
on  the  snow.  It  had  been  rigid  like  a  dried  board  when  he 
picked  it  up.  And  now  this  was  Gerald,  stiff  as  a  board, 
curled  up  as  if  for  sleep,  yet  with  the  horrible  hardness  some- 
how evident.  It  filled  him  with  horror.  The  room  must 
be  made  warm,  the  body  must  be  thawed.  The  limbs  would 
break  like  glass  or  like  wood  if  they  had  to  be  straightened. 


532  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

He  reached  and  touched  the  dead  face.  And  the  sharp, 
heavy  bruise  of  ice  bruised  his  living  bowels.  He  wondered 
if  he  himself  were  freezing  too,  freezing  from  the  inside. — 
In  the  short  blond  moustache  the  life-breath  was  frozen  into 
a  block  of  ice,  beneath  the  silent  nostrils.  And  this  was 
Gerald ! 

Again  he  touched  the  sharp,  almost  glittering  fair  hair 
of  the  frozen  body.  It  was  icy-cold,  hair  icy-cold,  almost 
venomous.  Birkin's  heart  began  to  freeze.  He  had  loved 
Gerald.  Now  he  looked  at  the  shapely,  strange-coloured 
face,  with  the  small,  fine,  pinched  nose  and  the  manly  cheeks, 
saw  it  frozen  like  an  ice-pebble — yet  he  had  loved  it.  What 
was  one  to  think  or  feel? — His  brain  was  beginning  to  freeze, 
his  blood  was  turning  to  ice-water.  So  cold,  so  cold,  a 
heavy,  bruising  cold  pressing  on  his  arms  from  outside,  and  a 
heavier  cold  congealing  within  him,  in  his  heart  and  in  his 
bowels. 

He  went  over  the  snow  slopes,  to  see  where  the  death 
had  been.  At  last  he  came  to  the  great  shallow  among  the 
precipices  and  slopes,  near  the  summit  of  the  pass.  It  was  a 
grey  day,  the  third  day  of  greyness  and  stillness.  All  was 
white,  icy,  pallid,  save  for  the  scoring  of  black  rocks  that 
jutted  like  roots  sometimes,  and  sometimes  were  in  naked 
faces.  In  the  distance  a  slope  sheered  down  from  a  peak, 
with  many  black  rock-slides. 

It  was  like  a  shallow  pot  lying  among  the  stone  and  snow 
of  the  upper  world.  In  this  pot  Gerald  had  gone  to  sleep. 
At  the  far  end,  the  guides  had  driven  iron  stakes  deep  into  the 
snow-wall,  so  that,  by  means  of  the  great  rope  attached, 
they  could  haul  themselves  up  the  massive  snow-front,  out 
on  to  the  jagged  summit  of  the  pass,  naked  to  heaven,  where 
the  Marienhtitte  hid  among  the  naked  rocks.  Round  about, 
spiked,  slashed  snow-peaks  pricked  the  heaven. 

Gerald  might  have  found  this  rope.  He  might  have  hauled 
himself  up  to  the  crest.  He  might  have  heard  the  dogs  in  the 
Marienhutte,  and  found  shelter.  He  might  have  gone  on, 
down  the  steep,  steep  fall  of  the  south-side,  down  into  the  dark 
valley  with  its  pines,  on  to  the  great  Imperial  road  leading 
south  to  Italy. 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  533 

He  might!  And  what  then?  The  Imperial  road!  The  south? 
Italy?  What  then?  Was  it  a  way  out? — It  was  only  a  way  in 
again.  Birkin  stood  high  in  the  painful  air,  looking  at  the 
peaks,  and  the  way  south.  Was  it  any  good  going  south,  to 
Italy?   Down  the  old,  old  Imperial  road? 

He  turned  away.  Either  the  heart  would  break,  or 
cease  to  care.  Best  cease  to  care.  Whatever  the  mystery 
which  has  brought  forth  man  and  the  universe,  it  is  a  non- 
human  mystery,  it  has  its  own  great  ends,  man  is  not  the  cri- 
terion. Best  leave  it  all  to  the  vast,  creative,  non-human 
mystery.     Best  strive  with  oneself  only,  not  with  the  universe. 

"God  cannot  do  without  man."  It  was  a  saying  of  some 
great  French  religious  teacher. — But  surely  this  is  false. 
God  can  do  without  man.  God  could  do  without  the  ichthyo- 
sauri and  the  mastodon.  These  monsters  failed  creatively 
to  develop,  so  God,  the  creative  mystery,  dispensed  with 
them.  In  the  same  way  the  mystery  could  dispense  with 
man,  should  he  too  fail  creatively  to  change  and  develop. 
The  eternal  creative  mystery  could  dispose  of  man,  and  re- 
place him  with  a  finer  created  being.  Just  as  the  horse  has 
taken  the  place  of  the  mastodon. 

It  was  very  consoling  to  Birkin,  to  think  this.  If  humanity 
ran  into  a  cul  de  sac,  and  expanded  itself,  the  timeless  creative 
mystery  would  bring  forth  some  other  being,  finer,  more 
wonderful,  some  new  more  lovely  race,  to  carry  on  the  em- 
bodiment of  creation.  The  game  was  never  up.  The 
mystery  of  creation  was  fathomless,  infallible,  inexhaustible, 
forever.  Races  came  and  went,  species  passed  away,  but 
ever  new  species  arose,  more  lovely,  or  equally  lovely,  always 
surpassing  wonder.  The  fountain-head  was  incorruptible 
and  unsearchable.  It  had  no  limits.  It  could  bring  forth 
miracles,  create  utter  new  races  and  new  species,  in  its  own 
hour,  new  forms  of  consciousness,  new  forms  of  body,  new 
units  of  being.  To  be  man  was  as  nothing  compared  to  the 
possibilities  of  the  creative  mystery.  To  have  one's  pulse 
iK'ating  direct  from  the  mystery,  this  was  perfection,  unutter- 
able satisfaction.  Human  or  inhuman  mattered  nothing. 
The  perfect  pulse  throbbed  with  indescribable  being,  miracu- 
lous unborn  species. 


534  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

Birkin  went  home  again  to  Gerald.  He  went  into  the  room, 
and  sat  down  on  the  bed.      Dead,  dead  and  cold! 

"Imperial  Ceasar  dead,  and  turned  to  clay 
Would  stop  a  hole  to  keep  the  wind  away." 

There  was  no  response  from  that  which  had  been  Gerald. 
Strange,  congealed,  icy  substance — no  more.      No  more! 

Terribly  weary,  Birkin  went  away,  about  the  day's  busi- 
ness. He  did  it  all  quietly,  without  bother.  To  rant,  to 
rave,  to  be  tragic,  to  make  situations — it  was  all  too  late. 
Best  be  quiet,  and  bear  one's  soul  in  patience  and  in  fulness. 

But  when  he  went  in  again,  at  evening,  taking  look  at 
Gerald  between  the  candles,  because  of  his  heart's  hunger, 
suddenly  his  heart  contracted,  his  own  candle  all  but  fell 
from  his  hand,  as,  with  a  strange  whimpering  cry,  the  tears 
broke  out.  He  sat  down  in  a  chair,  shaken  by  a  sudden  access. 
Ursula  who  had  followed  him,  recoiled  aghast  from  him,  as 
he  sat  with  sunken  head  and  body  convulsively  shaken, 
making  a  strange,  horrible  sound  of  tears. 

"I  didn't  want  it  to  be  like  this — I  didn't  want  it  to  be 
like  this,"  he  cried  to  himself.  Ursula  could  not  but  think  of 
the  Kaiser's:  "Ich  habe  as  nicht  gewollt."  She  looked  almost 
with  horror  on  Birkin. 

Suddenly  he  was  silent.  But  he  sat  with  his  head  dropped, 
to  hide  his  face.  Then  furtively  he  wiped  his  face  with  his 
fingers.  Then  suddenly  he  lifted  his  head,  and  looked  straight 
at  Ursula,  with  dark  almost  vengeful  eyes. 

"He  should  have  loved  me,"  he  said.      "I  offered  him." 

She,  afraid,  white,  with  mute  lips  answered: 

"What  difference  would  it  have  made!" 

"It  would!"  he  said.     "It  would." 

He  forgot  her,  and  turned  to  look  at  Gerald.  With  head 
oddly  lifted,  like  a  man  who  draws  his  head  back  from  an 
insult,  half  haughtily,  he  watched  the  cold,  mute,  material 
face.  It  had  a  bluish  cast.  It  sent  a  shaft  like  ice  through 
the  heart  of  the  living  man.  Cold,  mute,  material!  Birkin 
remembered  how  once  Gerald  had  clutched  his  hand,  with  a 
warm,  momentaneous  grip  of  final  love.  For  one  second — 
then  let  go  again,  let  go  forever.     If  he  had  kept  true  to  that 


WOMEN   IN   LOVE  535 

clasp,  death  would  not  have  mattered.  Those  who  die,  and 
dying  still  can  love,  still  believe,  do  not  die.  They  live 
still  in  the  beloved.  Gerald  might  still  have  been  living 
in  the  spirit  with  Birkin,  even  after  death.  He  might  have 
lived  with  his  friend,  a  further  life. 

But  now  he  was  dead,  like  clay,  like  bluish,  corruptible 
ice.  Birkin  looked  at  the  blue  fingers,  the  inert  mass.  He 
remembered  a  dead  stallion  he  had  seen:  a  dead  mass  of 
maleness,  repugnant.  He  remembered  also  the  beautiful 
face  of  one  whom  he  had  loved,  and  who  had  died  still  having 
the  faith  to  yield  to  the  mystery.  That  dead  face  was 
beautiful,  no  one  could  call  it  cold,  mute,  material.  No  one 
could  remember  it  without  gaining  faith  in  the  mystery, 
without  the  soul's  warming  with  new  deep  life-trust. 

And  Gerald!  The  denier!  He  left  the  heart  cold,  frozen, 
hardly  able  to  beat.  Gerald's  father  had  looked  wistful, 
to  break  the  heart:  but  not  this  last  terrible  look  of  cold, 
mute  Matter.      Birkin  watched  and  watched. 

Ursula  stood  aside  watching  the  living  man  stare  at  the 
frozen  face  of  the  dead  man.  Both  faces  were  unmoved  and 
unmoving.  The  candle-flames  flickered  in  the  frozen  air, 
in  the  intense  silence. 

"Haven't  you  seen  enough?"   she  said. 

He  got  up. 

"It's  a  bitter  disappointment  to  me,"  he  said. 

"What — that  he's  dead?"   she  said. 

His  eyes  just  met  hers.     He  did  not  answer. 

"You've  got  me,"  she  said. 

He  smiled  and  kissed  her. 

"If  I  die,"  he  said,  "you'll  know  I  haven't  left  you." 

"And  me?"   she  cried. 

"And  you  won't  have  left  me,"  he  said.  "We  shan't 
have  any  need  to  despair,  in  death." 

She  took  hold  of  his  hand. 

"But  need  you  despair  over  Gerald?"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  he  answered. 

They  went  away.  Gerald  was  taken  to  England,  to  be 
buried.  Birkin  and  Ursula  accompanied  the  body,  along 
with  one  of  Gerald's  brothers.     It  was  the  Crich  brothers  and 


536  WOMEN   IN   LOVE 

sisters  who  insisted  on  the  burial  in  England.  Birkin  wanted 
to  leave  the  dead  man  in  the  Alps,  near  the  snow.  But  the 
family  was  strident,  loudly  insistent. 

Gudrun  went  to  Dresden.  She  wrote  no  particulars  of 
herself.  Ursula  stayed  at  the  Mill  with  Birkin  for  a  week  or 
two.      They  were  both  very  quiet. 

"Did  you  need  Gerald?"   she  asked  one  evening. 

"Yes,"  he  said. 

"Aren't  I  enough  for  you?"   she  asked. 

"No,"  he  said.  "You  are  enough  for  me,  as  far  as  a  woman 
is  concerned.  You  are  all  women  to  me.  But  I  wanted  a 
man  friend,  as  eternal  as  you  and  I  are  eternal." 

"Why  aren't  I  enough?"  she  said.  "You  are  enough 
for  me.  I  don't  want  anybody  else  but  you.  Why  isn't 
it  the  same  with  you?" 

"Having  you,  I  can  live  all  my  life  without  anybody  else, 
any  other  sheer  intimacy.  But  to  make  it  complete,  really 
happy,  I  wanted  eternal  union  with  a  man  too:  another 
kind  of  love,"  he  said. 

"I  don't  believe  it,"  she  said.  "It's  an  obstinacy,  a 
theory,  a  perversity." 

"Well — "  he  said. 

"You  can't  have  two  kinds  of  love.      Why  should  you!" 

"It  seems  as  if  I  can't,"  he  said.      "Yet  I  wanted  it." 

"You  can't  have  it,  because  it's  wrong,  impossible,"  she 
said. 

"I  don't  believe  that,"  he  answered. 


Copy  I 


